Abstract
The article investigates the effects of NiO (p-type) and TiO2 (n-type) nanoparticles (NPs) on the performance of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and (phenyl-C61-butyric acid methylester) (PCBM) based devices with an inverse geometry. Various weight ratios of these nanoparticles were mixed in the polymer solution using 1,2-dichlorobenzene as solvent. An optimal amount of NPs-doped active layer exhibited higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 3.85% as compared to the reference cell, which exhibited an efficiency of 3.40% under white light illumination intensity of 100 mW/cm2. Enhanced PCE originates from increased film roughness and light harvesting due to increased absorption range upon mixing an optimal amount of NPs in the organic-based active layer. Further addition of NiO and TiO2 concentration relative to PCBM resulted in significant agglomeration of nanoparticles leading to degraded device parameters.
Highlights
Organic solar cells (OSCs) are attracting lot of attention as a potential replacement to Si-based photovoltaics (PV) because of being colorful, portable, easy to fabricate and cost-effective
Jsc is the maximum photocurrent of the device and depends on several factors including light absorption range, surface area and thickness of photoactive layer, electron–hole generation, diffusion, separation and charge transport properties (Liang and Yu 2010)
The open-circuit voltage increased with the optimum amount of NPs in the P3HT and PCBM blend and dropped from bulk heterojunction (BHJ) network breaking down affected by large aggregations of metal oxide NPs
Summary
Organic solar cells (OSCs) are attracting lot of attention as a potential replacement to Si-based photovoltaics (PV) because of being colorful, portable, easy to fabricate and cost-effective. Enhanced PCE originates from increased film roughness and light harvesting due to increased absorption range upon mixing an optimal amount of NPs in the organic-based active layer.
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