Tiwari, J. P. and Pillai, Sriraj and Parakh, Sonal and Ali, Farman and Sharma, Abhishek and Chand, Suresh (2014) A futuristic approach towards interface layer modifications for improved efficiency in inverted organic solar cells. APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, 104 (4). 041114-1-041114-6. ISSN 0003-6951

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Abstract

Inverted polymer Solar Cells of the classical poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):(6,6)-phenyl-C(61)butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM) blend on indium tin oxide substrates were fabricated, which shows improved device performance, by using a facile solution-processed ZnO-polyelectrolytes [poly (diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDADMAC), Poly (acrylic acid sodium salt) (PAS), poly (4-styrenesulfonic acid) (PSS), and Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)] nanocomposite as a cathode interface layer compared to devices using pristine ZnO as cathode buffer layer in ambient conditions. The devices with different combinations of polyelectrolyte with ZnO show different improvements in the device efficiency. The combinations of ZnO with PVP and PDADMAC show highest amount of improvements in the efficiency by a factor of similar to 17-19. The improvement of the efficiency may be due to various phenomena, such as the passivation of ZnO surface as well as bulk traps, work function modification, improved energy level alignment, improved electronic coupling of the inorganic/organic interface, improved light harvesting, and decrease of surface as well as bulk charge recombination in the device. The introduction of polyelectrolyte into ZnO inhibits the aggregation of ZnO nanoparticles yielding the large area ZnO nanoclusters; and hence, forming the uniform film of ZnO resulting in the modifications of morphology as well as electronic structure of ZnO-polyelectrolyte nano-composite favouring better electronic coupling between cathode and active layer and hence enhancing the current and, consequently, the efficiency. This simple low temperature ZnO-polyelectrolyte nanocomposite based protocol proposed for cathode interface layer modification may be very much useful for roll to roll industrial manufacturing of organic solar cells.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Copyright for this article belongs to American Institute of Physics.
Subjects:	Physics
Divisions:	UNSPECIFIED
Depositing User:	Dr. Rajpal Walke
Date Deposited:	07 Sep 2015 10:27
Last Modified:	07 Sep 2015 10:27
URI:	http://npl.csircentral.net/id/eprint/1142

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