Plasmonic metal nanoparticle films for solar cells with ultra-thin absorber layers

147 Pages·2017·10.85 MB·English

by  Liu, Yang

Plasmonic metal nanoparticle films for
solar cells with ultra-thin absorber layers-
low temperature synthesis
and application

Inaugural Dissertation
to obtain the academic degree
Doctor rerum naturalium (Dr. rer. nat.)

Submitted to the Department of
Biology, Chemistry and Pharmacy
of Freie Universität Berlin

by
Yang Liu
from Shandong, China

December, 2016
ii
This work has been carried out at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien
und Energie during the period from September 2013 to December 2016.

1st Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Christian-Herbert Fischer

2nd Reviewer: Prof. Dr. Ulrich Abram

Date of Defense: February 2nd, 2017

iii
iv
Acknowledgement

During the journey of finishing my Ph.D. work and realizing this thesis, many challenges
existed. My supervisors, colleagues, friends and family always supported me to overcome
all of them. Here I would like to express my acknowledgement to them:
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Dr. Christian-Herbert
Fischer. He is very wise, responsible and patient on supervising my work and reading all of
my writings during this period. Without his supervision I cannot finish this thesis. We had
many nice discussions which solved my problems not only on research but also in life. I
also learned much from him. I deeply appreciate him for all the work, help and support.
I am very grateful to my 2nd supervisor of this thesis Prof. Dr. Ulrich Abram, who
gave me not only very helpful advises but also constant support. I would also like to thank
him for fruitful discussions and help in this work.
I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Martha Ch. Lux-Steiner for giving me the
opportunity to work in her department in Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. I appreciate her for
the nice discussions and encouragements during the Montalks. Thanks a lot to her also for
the supports she provided.
Many thanks to Prof. Dr. Martina Schmid for being my supervisor on this work and
for accepting me to finish this thesis in her group. I appreciate it that she led me to the
fascinating field of plasmonic and supervised me on the related part of this work. I want to
thank her also for the responsible discussions and strong support to help me improve this
work.
Special thanks to Dr. Thomas Dittrich for being my supervisor on this work and
introducing me to SPV measurements. I would like to thank him for the fruitful discussions
and interpretation of SPV measurement results. Thanks also for his reading of my writing
and his responsibility, I learned a lot from him.
Special thanks also to Dr. Yanpeng Fu for introducing me to the ILGAR group and for
very useful assistance especially at the beginning of my work.
Many thanks to Paul Plate for the cooperation in silver nanoparticle preparation, to
Felix Lang for the cooperation on perovskite solar cells and many useful discussions, to
Dr. Andreas Ott for the preparation of gold nanorods.
I’m grateful to Dr. Phillip Manley for his support of the optical simulation program
and many discussions, as well as his help. The simulation results were obtained at the
Berlin Joint Lab for Optical Simulations for Energy Research (BerOSE) of Helmholtz-
Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie, Zuse Institute Berlin, and Freie Universität
Berlin.
v
Acknowledgement

Special thanks go to the former ILGAR-group members for very helpful discussions,
lots of help in many aspects and very nice work environment, particularly: Tristan Köhler,
Dr. Rodrigo Sáez Araoz, Martin Krüger and Johanna Krammer.
I am thankful to Dr. Iver Lauermann and Dr. Alexander Steigert for helping me with
the XPS measurement and the related discussions. I would also like to thank Dr. Volker
Hinrichs for his great help on LA-ICP-MS. Many thanks to Prof. Dr. Sebastian Fiechter for
measurements and helpful discussions. Thanks to Dr. Daniel Abou-Ras for the SEM
measurements. Thanks to Dr. Jaison Kavalakkatt and Dr. Xianzhong Lin for XRD
measurements and their help in many aspects.
I would like to thank Dr. Jörg Rappich, Dr. Marin Rusu, Dr. Konstantinos
Fostiropoulos and Dr. Reiner Klenk for letting me work in their labs and supports they
provided.
I would like to thank Dr. Guanchao Yin and Min Song for helping me and for
discussions on optical stimulations.
Many thanks go to all of my colleagues in Institute for Heterogeneous Material
Systems and Nanooptical concepts for PV as well as the rest of HZB who helped me to
finish this thesis and to enjoy the stay in HZB.
I am very grateful to China Scholarship Council for sponsoring me to study in
Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin. I would also like to thank Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin for its
support.
Finally, I want to express my deep gratitude to my family who always support my life.
Very, very special thanks to my wife, Fangfang Chu, without her love, support and
encouragement I cannot come to this point.

vi
Content

Chapter 1 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 2 Fundamentals and theory ................................................................................. 5
2.1 Solar cells with ultra-thin absorber layers ................................................................... 5
2.1.1 J-V characteristics of solar cells ........................................................................... 5
2.1.2 Extremely thin absorber solar cells....................................................................... 7
2.1.3 Ultra-thin perovskite solar cells ............................................................................ 8
2.2 Plasmonic silver and gold nanoparticles ................................................................... 10
2.2.1 Localized surface plasmon resonances ............................................................... 10
2.2.2 Synthesis of silver and gold nanoparticles.......................................................... 11
2.2.3 Application for light trapping of solar cells ........................................................ 12
2.2.4 Optical simulations for plasmonic solar cells ..................................................... 14
2.3 Background of this Thesis ......................................................................................... 15
Chapter 3 Deposition of Ag NPs by spray-CVD method ............................................... 17
3.1 Chemical vapor deposition ........................................................................................ 17
3.2 Deposition of Ag nanoparticles by spray-CVD ......................................................... 21
3.2.1 Fundamentals of spray-CVD for Ag nanoparticle deposition ............................ 21
3.2.2 Influence of the deposition parameters ............................................................... 24
3.2.2.1 Influence of N flow rate ............................................................................. 24
2
3.2.2.2 Influence of concentration of precursor solution ......................................... 25
3.2.2.3 Influence of deposition time ........................................................................ 27
3.2.2.4 Influence of substrate temperature .............................................................. 30
3.2.3 Size and density controlled Ag nanoparticles ..................................................... 31
3.2.4 Mechanism of the deposition of Ag NPs ............................................................ 34
3.2.4.1 Deposition mechanism ................................................................................ 35
3.2.4.2 Growth mechanism of Ag NPs .................................................................... 38
I
Contents

3.3 Summary ................................................................................................................... 41
Chapter 4 Deposition of plasmonic silver nanoparticles on top of extremely-thin In S
2 3
layer .................................................................................................................................... 45
4.1 Preparation of extremely-thin In S layer by spray-ILGAR ..................................... 45
2 3
4.2 Deposition of Ag NPs on top of extremely-thin In S layers by spray-CVD ........... 48
2 3
4.3 Influence of the process parameter on the deposition of Ag NPs on top of In S
2 3
layers ............................................................................................................................... 49
4.3.1 Concentration of precursor solution ................................................................... 50
4.3.2 Deposition time .................................................................................................. 54
4.4 Mechanism of the deposition process ....................................................................... 61
4.5 Application in extremely-thin absorber solar cells ................................................... 63
4.6 Summary ................................................................................................................... 65
Chapter 5 Application of Ag nanoparticles in ultra-thin perovskite solar cells .......... 67
5.1 Fabrication of ultra-thin perovskite solar cells .......................................................... 67
5.2 Simulated incorporation of Ag NPs in ultra-thin perovskite solar cells.................... 72
5.2.1 Incorporation of Ag NPs between perovskite layer and spiro-OMeTAD layer . 73
5.2.2 Incorporation of Ag NPs between TiO layer and perovksite layer ................... 77
2
5.2.3 Incorporation of Ag NPs between FTO and TiO layer ..................................... 78
2
5.3 Experimental incorporation of Ag NPs in ultra-thin perovskite solar cells .............. 78
5.3.1 Deposition of Ag NPs on top of ultra-thin perovskite layer ............................... 79
5.3.2 Deposition of Ag NPs on top of the TiO layer.................................................. 81
2
5.3.3 Deposition of Ag NPs on top of the FTO layer .................................................. 84
5.4 Summary ................................................................................................................... 93
Chapter 6 Application of Au@SiO core-shell nanorods in perovskite solar cells ..... 95
2
6.1 Simulated incorporation of Au@SiO core-shell nanorods in perovskite solar cells 95
2
6.2 Experimental incorporation of Au@SiO core-shell nanorods into perovskite solar
2
cells .................................................................................................................................. 98
6.3 Summary ................................................................................................................. 103
Chapter 7 Summary ........................................................................................................ 105
Appendix A ...................................................................................................................... 109
Appendix B ....................................................................................................................... 113
References ........................................................................................................................ 119
II
Contents

List of publications .......................................................................................................... 129
Curriculum Vitae ............................................................................................................. 131
Statement .......................................................................................................................... 133

III
Contents

IV