Engineering Photovoltaic Response of 2D Ruddlesden-Popper Perovskite using Plasmonics.

Organic-Inorganic Lead based perovskite solar cells offer a promising alternative to present day Si-solar cell, reaching an efficiency of almost 25% in a span of less than ten years. However, perovskite based cells still face stability and toxicity issues due to their constituents elements like organic molecules (Methylammonium, Butylammonium etc.) and heavy metal ions (Lead) thus limiting it’s prospects towards commercialization. A lot of efforts have been made towards improving the stability of these lead base perovskites to improve their stability by introducing a heavy metal cation into conventional perovskite materials to generate a 2D structure, called Ruddlesden-Popper Perovskite with improved stability than the conventional 3D perovskites. But the issue of Lead toxicity remains. In this work, we propose use of plasmonics as an efficient method to improve the efficiency 2D Ruddlesden Popper perovskite solar cell. The use of plasmonic structures will result in improved light harvesting in the cell while keeping the perovskite layer thickness to minimum and hence reducing the toxic content of the cell giving it a fighting chance for practical applications.