By adding gold nanoparticles to organic photovoltaic panels, a research team from UCLA, China, and Japan have increased the solar efficiency. By using the plasmonic effect, where the metal helps absorb more sunlight, the team pushed the overall light to energy output efficiently from 5.22 to 6.24, for a 20% increase. The construction places a gold layer between two light absorbing subcells, called a tandem polymer solar cell. Their method of layering has sidestepped all past difficulties of adding metal nanostructures into devices.
The success of the plasmonic effect of gold nanoparticles will lead to future development of polymer solar cells. The interlayer structure is being considered for other materials and "opening up opportunities" for higher efficiency, milt-stack, tandem solar cells. However, with gold currently at $1,800 USD per oz, the gains in efficiency may be diminished by manufacturing costs.
The project lead is professor Yang Yang of UCLA's Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at UCLA's California NanoSystems Institute. The research team includes Xing Wang Zhang from the Key Lab of Semiconductor Materials Science at the Institute of Semiconductors at Beijing's Chinese Academy of Science and Ziruo Hong from the Graduate School of Science and Engineering at Japan's Yamagata University.
Three people, alone, changed organic solar cells forever.
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