Arrays of Plasmonic Nanostructures for Absorption Enhancement in Perovskite Thin Films

• Main Authors: Tianyi Shen, Qiwen Tan, Zhenghong Dai, Nitin P. Padture, Domenico Pacifici
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-07-01
• Series: Nanomaterials
• Subjects: perovskite solar cells; surface plasmon polaritons; plasmonic nanostructures; absorption enhancement; FDTD simulations
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-4991/10/7/1342

We report optical characterization and theoretical simulation of plasmon enhanced methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI<inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <msub> <mrow></mrow> <mn>3</mn> </msub> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula>) thin-film perovskite solar cells. Specifically, various nanohole (NH) and nanodisk (ND) arrays are fabricated on gold/MAPbI<inline-formula> <math display="inline"> <semantics> <msub> <mrow></mrow> <mn>3</mn> </msub> </semantics> </math> </inline-formula> interfaces. Significant absorption enhancement is observed experimentally in 75 nm and 110 nm-thick perovskite films. As a result of increased light scattering by plasmonic concentrators, the original Fabry–Pérot thin-film cavity effects are suppressed in specific structures. However, thanks to field enhancement caused by plasmonic resonances and in-plane interference of propagating surface plasmon polaritons, the calculated overall power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the solar cell is expected to increase by up to 45.5%, compared to its flat counterpart. The role of different geometry parameters of the nanostructure arrays is further investigated using three dimensional (3D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) simulations, which makes it possible to identify the physical origin of the absorption enhancement as a function of wavelength and design parameters. These findings demonstrate the potential of plasmonic nanostructures in further enhancing the performance of photovoltaic devices based on thin-film perovskites.