Water soluble amino grafted silicon nanoparticles and their use in polymer solar cells

Hybrid Nanocomposite Thin Films for Photovoltaic Applications: A Review

Continuing growth in global energy consumption and the growing concerns regarding climate change and environmental pollution are the strongest drivers of renewable energy deployment. Solar energy is the most abundant and cleanest renewable energy source available. Nowadays, photovoltaic technologies can be regarded as viable pathways to provide sustainable energy generation, the achievement attained in designing nanomaterials with tunable properties and the progress made in the production processes having a major impact in their development. Solar cells involving hybrid nanocomposite layers have, lately, received extensive research attention due to the possibility to combine the advantages derived from the properties of both components: flexibility and processability from the organic part and stability and optoelectronics features from the inorganic part. Thus, this review provides a synopsis on hybrid solar cells developed in the last decade which involve composite layers deposited by spin-coating, the most used deposition method, and matrix-assisted pulsed laser evaporation, a relatively new deposition technique. The overview is focused on the hybrid nanocomposite films that can use conducting polymers and metal phthalocyanines as p-type materials, fullerene derivatives and non-fullerene compounds as n-type materials, and semiconductor nanostructures based on metal oxide, chalcogenides, and silicon. A survey regarding the influence of various factors on the hybrid solar cell efficiency is given in order to identify new strategies for enhancing the device performance in the upcoming years.

4-Alkyl-3,5-difluorophenyl-Substituted Benzodithiophene-Based Wide Band Gap Polymers for High-Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells

Two novel polymers PTFBDT-BZS and PTFBDT-BZO with 4-alkyl-3,5-difluorophenyl substituted benzodithiophene as the donor unit, benzothiadiazole or benzooxadiazole as the acceptor unit, and thiophene as the spacer have been synthesized and used as donor materials for polymer solar cells (PSCs). These two polymers exhibited wide optical band gaps of about 1.8 eV. PSCs with the blend of PTFBDT-BZS:PC71BM (1:2, by weight) as the active layer fabricated without using any processing additive and any postannealing treatment showed power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.24% with an open circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.89 V, a short circuit current (Jsc) of 12.67 mA/cm(2), and a fill factor (FF) of 0.73 under AM 1.5G illumination, indicating that PTFBDT-BZS is a very promising donor polymer for PSCs. The blend of PTFBDT-BZO:PC71BM showed a lower PCE of 5.67% with a Voc of 0.96 V, a Jsc of 9.24 mA/cm(2), and an FF of 0.64. One reason for the lower PCE is probably due to that PTFBDT-BZO has a smaller LUMO offset with PC71BM, which cannot provide enough driving force for charge separation. And another reason is probably due to that PTFBDT-BZO has a lower hole mobility in comparison with PTFBDT-BZS.

Low temperature processed ITO-free perovskite solar cells without a hole transport layer

We successfully employ low temperature processed conductive polymer PH1000 as an alternative electrode of ITO to fabricate HTL-free PSCs. The best device shows efficiency up to 9.31%, providing a much simpler architecture for the application of PSC.