The polymer solar cells were fabricated by a novel solution coating process, the roller painting. The roller painted film composed of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) has smoother surface than the spin coated film. Since the roller painting is accompanied with shear and normal stresses and is also a s low drying process, the process induces eff...

P3HT coordinates were obtained using GaussView with the TopoTools plugin in VMD. A single P3HT 20-mer consisted of 1002 atoms including 2 terminal hydrogen atoms. SWNT coordinates were obtained using the Nanotube Builder plugin in VMD and then relaxed separately with the Tersoff potential before the simulation. In the single P3HT chain – single SWNT runs a simulation box much bigger than the mo...

Charging ahead: separate values for the simultaneous electronic and ionic conductivity of a conjugated polymer containing poly(3-hexylthiophene) and poly(ethylene oxide) (P3HT-PEO) were determined by using ac impedance and dc techniques. P3HT-PEO was used as binder, and transporter of electronic charge and Li(+) ions in a LiFePO(4) cathode, which was incorporated into solid-state lithium batter...

The motivation of this study is to determine if small amounts of designer additives placed at the polymer-fullerene interface in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells can influence their performance. A series of AB-alternating side-chain-functionalized poly(thiophene) analogues, P1-6, are designed to selectively localize at the interface between regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (rr-P3HT) and...

Cadmium telluride (CdTe) tetrapods were synthesized via multiple injections of the Te precursor by utilizing bifunctional ligands. Subsequently, tetrapod-shaped semiconducting inorganic-organic nanocomposites (i.e., P3HT-CdTe tetrapod nanocomposites) were produced by directly grafting conjugated polymer ethynyl-terminated poly(3-hexylthiophene) (i.e., P3HT-≡) onto azide-functionalized CdTe tetr...

In an organic-based solar cell, the short exciton diffusion length of organic materials requires effective donor-acceptor heterojunction at the nanoscale. In this work, hybrid inorganic/polymer solar cells based on ZnO nanostructures and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) are constructed to study the effects of ZnO morphologies and wettability of the surface on the P3HT infiltration ability and char...

A thin-film transistor (TFT) having an organic-inorganic hybrid thin film combines the advantage of TFT sensors and the enhanced sensing performance of hybrid materials. In this work, poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)-zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles' hybrid thin film was fabricated by a spraying process as the active layer of TFT for the employment of a room temperature operated formaldehyde (HCHO) ...

We present a theoretical study of degradation mechanisms for photoinduced oxidation in organic polymers in the condensed phase, using poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as an example. Applying density functional theory with a hybrid density functional and periodic boundary conditions that account for steric effects and permit the modeling of interchain chemical reactions, we investigate reaction pat...

We measured the picoseconds (ps) transient dynamics of photoexcitations in blends of regio-regular poly(3-hexyl-thiophene) (RR-P3HT) (donors-D) and fullerene (PCBM) (acceptor-A) in an unprecedented broad spectral range of 0.25 to 2.5 eV. In D-A blends with maximum domain separation, such as RR-P3HT/PCBM, with (1.2:1) weight ratio having solar cell power conversion efficiency of ~4%, we found th...

We present electrogenerated chemiluminescence (ECL) and photoluminescence (PL) characteristics of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT) thin films incorporated with monodisperse TiO(2) nanoparticles prepared using a hydrothermal reaction in the presence of oleylamine and oleic acid. The ECL turn-on potential decreases in the presence of TiO(2) nanocrystals, accompanied with an increase in ECL ...