Improving the photovoltaic response of a poly(3-octylthiophene)/n-Si heterojunction by incorporating double-walled carbon nanotubes

Prakash R. Somani (1) , Savita P. Somani (1) , Emmanuel Flahaut (2) , Masayoshi Umeno (1)

1 Department of Electronics and Information Engineering (Kasugai, Japan)
2 CIRIMAT - Centre interuniversitaire de recherche et d'ingenierie des matériaux

Poly(3-octylthiophene)/n-Si heterojunction solar cells were studied with and without incorporation of double-walled carbon nanotubes (DWCNs) in the polymer layer. The performance of the device improves significantly by the incorporation of DWCNs. We report a power conversion efficiency, open circuit voltage, short-circuit current density and fill factor of 0.49%, 0.53 V, 5.9 mA cm−2 and 0.15 respectively for an un-optimized cell containing DWCNs. Reference cells without DWCNs show a much lower performance. DWCN incorporation yields better hole transport, easy exciton splitting and suppression of charge recombination, thereby improving photovoltaic action. DWCN seems a promising material for improving hole transport in organic solar cells.

Mots clés: Matériaux

Domaines: Matériaux

Prakash R. Somani, Savita P. Somani, Emmanuel Flahaut, Masayoshi Umeno. Improving the photovoltaic response of a poly(3-octylthiophene)/n-Si heterojunction by incorporating double-walled carbon nanotubes. Nanotechnology, 2007, vol. 18, pp.185708-1. ⟨10.1088/0957-4484/18/18/185708⟩. ⟨hal-00807919⟩