Light absorption enhancement in heterostructure organic solar cells through the integration of 1-D plasmonic gratings

The integration of a plasmonic lamellar grating in a heterostructure organic solar cell as a light trapping mechanism is investigated with numerical Finite Elements simulations. A global optimization of all the geometric parameters has been performed. The obtained wide-band enhancement in optical absorption is correlated with both the propagating and the localized plasmonic modes of the structure, which have been identified and characterized in detail. (c) 2012 Optical Society of America