Synthesis of ZnO nanocrystal by thermal decomposition for inverted polymer solar cell application

Abstract

In this paper, zinc oxide (ZnO) nanocrystals (NCs) were fabricated by a simple thermal decomposition method at a moderate temperature, The morphology, crystalline structure and transmittance spectrum were investigated by field-emission scanning-electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy, respectively. The results of these measurements showed that the ZnO NCs contained a great number of irregularly shaped particles and some aggregations with a wurtzite structure. The ZnO NCs exhibited good optical transparency within the visible spectral range, with >90 % transmission. Furthermore, an inverted polymer solar cell consisted of the ZnO NCs and the polymer were fabricated. The device exhibited an open circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.53 V, a short circuit current density (Jsc) of 4.18 mA/cm2, a fill-factor of 40 %, and a power conversion efficiency of 0.89 %.