Opt Quant Electron DOI 10.1007/s11082-014-0110-1 Light harvesting improvement of polymer solar cell through nanohole photoactive layer Doha. M. A. Rahman · Mohamed Farhat O. Hameed · S. S. A. Obayya Received: 25 September 2014 / Accepted: 26 December 2014 © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015 Abstract A design of nanohole polymer solar cell is reported for light trapping improve- ment. The proposed design has shown a considerable enhancement in the optical and electrical parameters of the polymer solar cell based on a conventional blend of poly- 3-hexylthiophene/[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) as an active material. In this study, 3D finite difference time domain method is used to simulate the light absorption in the nanohole structure. In addition, an electrical model is developed to calcu- late the electrical parameters of the polymer solar cell. The reported design has shown 28 % improvement in short circuit current density and overall efficiency alike. Keywords Polymer solar cell · Nanohole · Opto-electrical model · Finite difference time domain 1 Introduction In recent years, organic solar cells (SCs) have gained enormous interest due to their low cost, flexibility and large area (You et al. 2013). However, the low efficiency of organic solar cells which around 5 % remains a massive challenge (Vervisch et al. 2011; Chou 2013). As a result, a number of different techniques has been investigated to improve the efficiency of the organic solar cell such as; localized surface plasmon on metal nanoparticles (Liu et al. 2013; Zeng et al. 2013) and plasmonic cavity (Chou 2013). Currently, nanostructures have grown as the main building block to construct light-trapping which can improve the absorption in the active materials as well as the overall efficiency of the solar cell by controlling the structure D. M. A. Rahman · M. F. O. Hameed · S. S. A. Obayya (B ) Centre for Photonics and Smart Materials, Zewail City of Science and Technology, Sheikh Zayed District, 6th of October City, Giza, Egypt e-mail: sobayya@zewailcity.edu.eg M. F. O. Hameed Mathematics and Engineering Physics Department, Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt 123