Strongly enhanced efficiency of polymer solar cells through unzipped SWNT hybridization in the hole transport layer. Issue 42 (2nd July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Zhang, Wenna; Bu, Fanchen; Shen, Wenfei; Qi, Xiaohua; Yang, Na; Chen, Mengyao; Yang, Di; Wang, Yao; Zhang, Miaorong; Jiang, Haoyang; Strizhak, Peter; Tang, Jianguo
• Is Part Of: RSC advances. Volume 10:Issue 42(2020)
• Page Start: 24847
• Page End: 24854
• Publication Date: 2020-07-02
• Subjects: Chemistry -- Periodicals; 540.5
• DOI: 10.1039/d0ra03461d
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2046-2069

Abstract

Abstract : Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have good conductivity, but their size can't match the heterojunction nanostructure in polymer solar cells (PSCs). Abstract : Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) have good conductivity, but their size can't match the heterojunction nanostructure in polymer solar cells (PSCs). To improve the photovoltaic performance of PSCs, herein, a faciley fabricated composite hole transport layer composed of unzipped single-walled carbon nanotubes (uSWNTs) and poly(3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) is effectively applied for PSC devices. Compared with the pure PEDOT:PSS hole transport layer (HTL) without uSWNTs, the uSWNTs/PEDOT:PSS layer shows more effective performance as the hole transportation layer. Optimizing the uSWNT concentration in PEDOT:PSS results in fabrication of the PSC devices with uSWNTs/PEDOT:PSS hole transport layers that exhibit greatly improved average power conversion efficiency (PCE), from 13.72% to 14.60%, and greatly enhanced current density and fill factor, which can be ascribed to the increased conductivity and hole transport efficiency. Our approach also supports simple solution-processing techniques and the insensitivity of the performance to thickness, which promises that the faciley fabricated uSWNTs/PEDOT:PSS layer has more potential to be applicable to the roll-to-roll process of PSC fabrication with extremely low cost.