Inverted polymer solar cells with employing of electrochemical-anodizing synthesized TiO2 nanotubes

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/25/4/047201

Abstract An inverted structure of polymer solar cells based on Poly(3-hexylthiophene)(P3HT):[6-6] Phenyl-(6) butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) with using thin films of TiO₂ nanotubes and nanoparticles as an efficient cathode buffer layer is developed. A total of three cells employing TiO₂ thin films with different thickness values are fabricated. Two cells use layers of TiO₂ nanotubes prepared via self-organized electrochemical-anodizing leading to thickness values of 203 and 423.7 nm, while the other cell uses only a simple sol-gel synthesized TiO₂ thin film of nanoparticles with a thickness of 100 nm as electron transport layer. Experimental results demonstrate that TiO₂ nanotubes with these thickness values are inefficient as the power conversion efficiency of the cell using 100-nm TiO₂ thin film is 1.55%, which is more than the best power conversion efficiency of other cells. This can be a result of the weakness of the electrochemical anodizing method to grow nanotubes with lower thickness values. In fact as the TiO₂ nanotubes grow in length the series resistance (R_s) between the active polymer layer and electron transport layer increases, meanwhile the fill factor of cells falls dramatically which finally downgrades the power conversion efficiency of the cells as the fill factor falls.

Keywords: inverted polymer solar cells TiO₂ nanotubes electrochemical-anodizing doctor blading

Received: 11 August 2015
Revised: 14 December 2015
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:	72.80.Le	(Polymers; organic compounds (including organic semiconductors))
	73.61.-r	(Electrical properties of specific thin films)
	73.22.-f	(Electronic structure of nanoscale materials and related systems)

Corresponding Authors: Mehdi Ahmadi
E-mail: m.ahmadi@vru.ac.ir

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Mehdi Ahmadi, Sajjad Rashidi Dafeh, Hamed Fatehy Inverted polymer solar cells with employing of electrochemical-anodizing synthesized TiO₂ nanotubes 2016 Chin. Phys. B 25 047201

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Inverted polymer solar cells with employing of electrochemical-anodizing synthesized TiO2 nanotubes

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Inverted polymer solar cells with employing of electrochemical-anodizing synthesized TiO₂ nanotubes