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Organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices, which convert solar energy into electricity using organic semi-conductive polymers or small molecules, have shown great promise in renewable and green energy applications. Despite their flexibility, lightweight and lowcost, OPVs suffer from low power conversion efficiency (PCE). Recent progresses in the synthesis of new polymers and tandem solar cells promoted the PCE to 10.6%, as reported in Feb 2012, which is a great leap from the 2.5% reported in Feb 2001. In thin film solar cells including OPVs, however, the light absorption is intrinsically limited by the thinness of the photoactive layer, especially at wavelengths near the edge of their absorption band. Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs), a hybrid of electron density oscillations and optical waves at dielectric/metal interfaces, have great potential in overcoming the limit in light absorption for three reasons. (1) SPPs are highly evanescent. When generated at the photoactive layer/metal electrode interface, SPPs benefit the optical absorption in thinfilm solar cells by concentrating optical waves and their electromagnetic energy near the photoactive layer. (2) SPPs propagate along the supporting interface, which can be utilized to change the light path. As the light propagates sideways along the photoactive layer, the light path and thus the absorption are effectively increased. (3) SPPs have unique and tunable dispersion relations, i.e. their propagating speed and effective index can be controlled. This can be useful in engineering and combining the SPPs with other photonic phenomena for the absorption enhancement. In this thesis, I proposed to use silver (Ag) gratings to enhance the light absorption in P3HT:PCBM-based OPVs. To implement the Ag gratings in OPVs, I designed an substrate type inverted OPV architecture with light impinging on the device directly from

Polarization-diverse absorption enhancement in thin-film organic photovoltaic devices using long-pitch plasmonic gratings