Correlations of Optical Absorption, Charge Trapping, and Surface Roughness of TiO2 Photoanode Layer Loaded with Neat Ag-NPs for Efficient Perovskite Solar Cells

We systematically investigated the effect of silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) on the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). Neat, spherical Ag-NPs at loading levels of 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 wt % were embedded into the titanium dioxide (TiO2) photoanode layer. The plasmonic effect of the Ag-NPs strongly enhanced the incident light absorption over a wide range of the visible wavelength region in addition to the inherent absorbance of the perovskite sensitizer. The low conduction energy level of the Ag-NPs compared to that of TiO2 provides trap sites for free charge carriers. Thus, the correlation between the enhancement of the optical absorption and the number of charge traps provided by the Ag-NPs is critical to determine the device performance, especially current density (J(sc)) and PCE. This is confirmed by the quantitative comparison of the incident light absorption and the time-resolved photoluminescence decay according to the loading levels of the Ag-NPs in the TiO2 layer. The absorption enhancement from 380 to 750 nm in the UV-visible spectrum is proportional to the increase in the loading levels of the Ag-NPs. However, the Jsc increases with the device with 0.5 wt % Ag-NPs and gradually decreases with increases in the loading level above 0.5 wt % because of the different contributions to the absorbance and the charge trapping by different Ag-NP loading levels. In addition, the suppression of the surface roughness with dense packing by the Ag-NPs helps to improve the J(sc) and the following PCE. Consequently, the PCE of the PSC with 0.5 wt % Ag-NPs is increased to 11.96%. These results are attributed to the balance between increased absorbance by the localized surface plasmon resonance and the decreased charge trapping as well as the decreased surface roughness of the TiO2 layer with the Ag-NPs.