Boosting Short-Circuit Current Density and Infrared Absorption in P3HT:PCBM Solar Cells with Plasmonic Aluminum Nanocylinders

Advancements in light-based technologies necessitate the development of optoelectronic devices for future renewable energy applications. a key challenge in enhancing the efficiency of organic solar cells (oscs) lies in improving light absorption in the near-infrared (nir) region, where conventional organic materials, such as p3ht1:pcbm2, suffer from inherently weak absorption. in this study, we introduce a hexagonal periodic array of aluminum (al) nanocylinders as a low-cost and effective plasmonic platform to address this limitation. using finite-difference time-domain (fdtd) simulations, we optimized the nanostructure embedded within the p3ht:pcbm active layer. the proposed design excites strong localized surface plasmon resonances (lsprs), leading to a significant enhancement in near-field intensity and effective optical path length, particularly across the 650– 1200 nm spectrum. through systematic optimization of nanocylinder dimensions (height: 50 nm, radius: 15 nm) and array periodicity (21 nm), an optimal active layer thickness of 150 nm was identified. the resulting plasmonic osc achieves an optical upper bound short-circuit current density (jsc) of 36.04 ma/cm2, representing a twofold enhancement over the reference cell. these results highlight the potential of aluminum nanocylinders as an effective plasmonic platform for enhancing light absorption in organic solar cells.