Several parameters of the fabrication process of inverted polymer bulk heterojunction solar cells based on titanium oxide as an electron selective layer and molybdenum oxide as a hole selective layer were tested in order to achieve efficient organic photovoltaic solar cells. Thermal annealing treatment is a common process to achieve optimum morphology, but it proved to be damageable for the per...

Within the different organic photovoltaic devices the conjugated polymer/fullerene bulk heterojunction approach is one of the foci of today’s research interest. These devices are highly dependent on the solid state nanoscale morphology of the two components (donor/acceptor) in the photoactive layer. The need for finely phase separated polymer–fullerene blends is expressed by the limited exciton...

Basic solar cell characteristics were examined in an organic bulk heterojunction device. The active layer is a spincoated organic blend of a pmaterial (MEH-PPV) and an n-material (the fullerene derivative PCBM), sandwiched between a transparent ITO-PEDOT/PSS electrode and an Al/LiF back-contact. We carried out light and dark I-V and spectral response measurements and measured the transparency o...

We report different solar cell designs which allow a simple electrical connection of subsequent devices deposited on the same substrate. By arranging the so-called standard and inverted solar cell architectures next to each other, a serial connection of the two devices can easily be realized by a single compound electrode. In this work, we tested different interfacial layer materials, such as p...

Two newly synthesized naphthodithiophene-based copolymers, PNB, exhibit a low optical bandgap of ∼1.64 eV with which the solar cells fabricated from the blend of PNB and PC(71)BM afforded a power conversion efficiency of 5.3% with external quantum efficiency over 60% in a broad spectral range.

Amorphous carbon (a-C) has the potential to provide properties important to solar photovoltaics that are comparable to those of silicon-based materials with further advantages such as low cost, solution processing, air stability, and higher thermal resistance. We employ accurate computational approaches to explore and understand active layers based on bulk heterojunctions containing a-C. Our re...

The effects of thermal and solvent vapor annealing on the photovoltaic performance of a new class of all-conjugated poly(3-butylthiophene)-b-poly(3-hexylthiophene) diblock copolymer/PC(71)BM bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells were scrutinized and theoretically analyzed using the single diode model combined with experimental measurements. The meanings of physical parameters in the model were ...

We have investigated the performance characteristics of bulk-heterojunction polymer solar cells based on poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) and [6,6]-phenyl C61 butyric acid methyl ester by adding 1,8-octanedithiol as a processing agent in an active layer. The effects of the additive, 1,8-octanedithiol, on the device performance parameter characteristics have been discussed. The current density-vo...

There is a growing interest in the earth abundant and nontoxic iron disulfide (FeS(2)) photovoltaic materials. Here, we report the synthesis of FeS(2) nanoplates with different spectral features which we have associated with thicknesses and crystallization. The structure and crystalline order of ultrathin FeS(2) nanoplates have a strong influence on the carrier lifetime, electronic and optical ...