Graphene-based solar cells

Graphene is a two-dimensional material composed by carbon atoms displaced on a honey-comb lattice. Due to its outstanding electrical and mechanical properties, it has recently attracted the attention of the research community, working nowadays to exploit graphene in electronic applications. In particular, its extreme thinness and the exceptional carrier mobility make graphene a perfect candidate as transparent electrode in organic solar cells, which have recently shown an impressive acceleration in power conversion efficiency (PCE). In this talk, we present a detailed investigation of PCE in graphene-based solar cell, through multi-scale calculations ranging from ab-initio to device simulations. Plasmonic effects at the interface will be discussed as well. We will show that graphene-based solar cells can outperform ITO-based solar cell, if technological issues like the large contact resistance will be overcome.