Inverse Optical Cavity Design for Ultrabroadband Light Absorption Beyond the Conventional Limit in Low-Bandgap Nonfullerene Acceptor–Based Solar Cells

In the subwavelength regime, several nanophotonic configurations have been proposed to overcome the conventional light trapping or light absorption enhancement limit in solar cells also known as the Yablonovitch limit. It has been recently suggested that establishing such limit should rely on comput...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Liu, Quan, Toudert, Johann, Li, Tengfei, Kramarenko, Mariia|||0000-0002-6934-5467, Martínez-Denegrí Sánchez, Guillermo, Ciammaruchi, Laura, Zhan, Xiaowei, Martorell Pena, Jordi|||0000-0002-8762-1162
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2019
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/165271
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/165271
https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201900463
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Solar cells--Design and construction
Light absorption
Light trapping
Optical cavity
Ternary blend
Low-bandgap nonfullerene acceptor thin-film solar cell
Cèl·lules solars -- Disseny i construcció
Absorció de la llum
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Física
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Energies::Energia solar fotovoltaica
Descripción
Sumario:In the subwavelength regime, several nanophotonic configurations have been proposed to overcome the conventional light trapping or light absorption enhancement limit in solar cells also known as the Yablonovitch limit. It has been recently suggested that establishing such limit should rely on computational inverse electromagnetic design instead of the traditional approach combining intuition and a priori known physical effect. In the present work, by applying an inverse full wave vector electromagnetic computational approach, a 1D nanostructured optical cavity with a new resonance configuration is designed that provides an ultrabroadband (˜450 nm) light absorption enhancement when applied to a 107 nm thick active layer organic solar cell based on a low-bandgap (1.32 eV) nonfullerene acceptor. It is demonstrated computationally and experimentally that the absorption enhancement provided by such a cavity surpasses the conventional limit resulting from an ergodic optical geometry by a 7% average over a 450 nm band and by more than 20% in the NIR. In such a cavity configuration the solar cells exhibit a maximum power conversion efficiency above 14%, corresponding to the highest ever measured for devices based on the specific nonfullerene acceptor used.