Abstract
We compare the performance of polymer solar cells based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) with silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) incorporated in poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS). The structure of constructed solar devices was ITO/PEDOT:PSS:Ag NPs/P3HT:PCBM/Al. Typical polyol chemistry was used to synthesize silver in water solution. Ag nanoparticles were investigated by UV-vis, atomic force microscopy (AFM), and dynamic light scattering (DLS) methods. We investigated influence of amount of silver in a hole transporting layer on the performance of bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells. The value of power conversion efficiency (PCE), equal to 2.16% under simulated 100 mW/cm2 AM 1.5G irradiation, was found for device created in air with 60 µL of Ag NPs added to 1 mL of PEDOT:PSS. Along with the increase amount of Ag NPs from 60 to 150 µL, the PCE decrease was found. Stability of solar cells with Ag was also investigated. The loss in value of PCE after 8 months was found in the range 13–47% depending on the device architecture. The solar cells were additionally measured with impedance spectroscopy.
Highlights
Recent development in organic solar cells (OSCs) is addressed to increase value of power conversion efficiency (PCE) by different plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) introduction [e.g., [1, 2]]
Silver nanoparticles were obtained by polyol chemistry [17] and characterized by UVvis, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) study
The AFM images showed that the size of Ag NPs and the thickness of PEDOT:PSS layer are about 55 and 59 nm, respectively, which indicate that Ag are imbedded with
Summary
Recent development in organic solar cells (OSCs) is addressed to increase value of power conversion efficiency (PCE) by different plasmonic nanoparticles (NPs) introduction [e.g., [1, 2]]. PEDOT:PSS suffers from the following reasons: (i) aggregates of particles in water solution of PEDOT:PSS, (ii) strong acid character of PSS in PEDOT:PSS, and (iii) hydrophilic character of PEDOT:PSS causing nonhomogeneity of the film morphology and electrical properties along with term stability of polymer devices [8] To solve these problems various inorganic compounds such as V2 O5 , WO3 , NiO, MoO3 , and organic compounds (poly(styrene sulfonic acid) grafted with polyaniline, polypyrrole-polystyrene sulfonate, or PEDOT:PSS with amphiphilic surfactant Surfynol 104 series, new polymer with carbazole and PO3 moieties, graphene oxide) are proposed instead or together with PEDOT:PSS in polymer solar cells [2, 7,8,9,10,11,12,13]. We achieved a high PCE of 2.16% for constructed BHJ polymer solar cell with 60 μL of Ag NPs in mL PEDOT:PSS
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