Plasmon-Enhanced Thin-Film Perovskite Solar Cells

We report on plasmon-enhanced hybrid organic-inorganic perovskite solar cells with methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI(3)) as the active absorbing material. Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain simulations were performed on perovskite solar cells that consist of perovskite films with varied thicknesses on top of corrugated gold electrodes with different light trapping geometries, such as arrays of nanoholes and nanodisks. The absorption within the perovskite and gold films was estimated by calculating the electric field at every mesh point within the simulation volume, which allowed for the calculation of the solar cell power conversion efficiency (PCE) as a function of relevant design parameters. Optimal nanostructure designs were obtained by systematically varying the geometry dimensions. The results show that 100 nm-thick perovskite films on top of corrugated gold electrodes can exhibit up to 52% increase in PCE compared to their flat counterparts (i.e., from 19.2% for a flat cell to 29.2% for an optimized nanocorrugated cell). Moreover, we show that a 150 nm-thick perovskite film cell with opportunely corrugated back metal contacts can exhibit a PCE value of_31.3%, which is comparable to that of a 400 nm-thick bulk-like-cell (31.6%). These-findings may pave the way for plasmon-enhanced high-performance perovskite solar cells with ultrathin absorbing layers.