Eur. Phys. J. Appl. Phys. 90, 30201 (2020)
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjap/2020200112

Regular Article

Ag nanoparticle-based efficiency enhancement in an inverted organic solar cell^★

¹ Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Genie Electrics (LATAGE), Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mouloud Mammeri University (UMMTO), BP 17 RP 15000, Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria
² Department of Chemistry, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
³ Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy, Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
⁴ Materials Laboratory, Department of Chemistry, Mirpur University of Science and Technology (MUST), Mirpur 10250 (AJK), Pakistan

^* e-mail: nunzijm@queensu.ca

Received: 21 April 2020
Received in final form: 22 April 2020
Accepted: 3 June 2020
Published online: 7 July 2020

Abstract

Herein, we demonstrate the improvement in performance of inverted organic solar cells fabricated with an Ag-nanoparticle (Np) modified ZnO-electron transport layer. Ag NP incorporation into the ZnO layer increases light harvesting efficiency of the solar device which untimely improves J_sc of the device. As a result, power conversion efficiency (PCE) of ZnO + Ag Np buffer layer based (ITO/ZnO:Ag NP/P3HT: PCBM/MoO₃/Ag) device reaches 3.02% which is 27% higher than ITO/ZnO/P3HT: PCBM/MoO₃/Ag device and 55.6% higher than the electron transfer layer(ETL) free (ITO/P3HT: PCBM/MoO₃/Ag) control device.