Plasmonic Metamaterial Perovskite Solar Cells: Fundamental Tradeoffs, Limitations, and Opportunities

Whether dispersal of plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) within a perovskite active layer can increase the efficiency of solar cells is a long-standing question. It is well known that inclusion of metallic NPs in an active layer can boost the surrounding near-field intensity around them owing to the dipolar localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR, also called antenna effect), which can increase light absorption by solar cells. However, the use of plasmonic NPs in perovskite solar cells has been barely reported, and it is not known whether inserting plasmonic NPs into a perovskite active layer produces any performance advantage compared with a pure perovskite counterpart. We explore the fundamental and practical limits of plasmonic metamaterial perovskite solar cells by applying effective medium theory and a detailed balance analysis. Our results indicate that an increase in effective refractive index of perovskite through dispersed plasmonic NPs can in principle enhance the performance of solar cells.