The optical properties of polymers attract considerable attention because of their potential optoelectronic applications, such as in polymer-based light-emitting diodes, light electrochemical cells, and solar cells. To optimize the performance of optoelectronic and photonic devices, some polymers are modified through the introduction of specific end groups, copolymerization, grafting, crosslink...

Since their discovery, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been considered to be promising candidates for polymer-based solar cells, but their functional incorporation and utilization in such devices have been limited due to processing bottlenecks. Here, we demonstrate the realization of controlled placement of a single-walled CNT (SWNT) monolayer network at four different positions in polymer-fullere...

A  commercial  Ti-Nanoxide  was  deposited  on  In-doped  SnO2 (ITO) polymer  substrates by  tape casting  technique with different thicknesses  (7,  14  and  36μm)  to  be  used  as  photoelectrode  in flexible  dye-sensitized  solar  cells  (DSSCs).  Ruthenium  dye  was adsorbed on each TiO2 film for 24 h. The resulting photoelectrodes were used to form flexible DSSCs in combination with...

Following the development of the bulk heterojunction1 structure, recent years have seen a dramatic improvement in the efficiency of polymer solar cells. Maximizing the open-circuit voltage in a low-bandgap polymer is one of the critical factors towards enabling high-efficiency solar cells. Study of the relation between open-circuit voltage and the energy levels of the donor/acceptor2 in bulk he...

A critical issue in polymer-based solar cells (PSCs) is to improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) as well as the stability. Here, we describe the development of new semiconducting polymers consisting of thiophene, thiazolothiazole and naphthobisthiadiazole in the polymer backbone. The polymers had good solubility and thus solution-processability, appropriate electronic structure with nar...

Polymer solar cells are of tremendous interests due to their attractive properties such as flexibility, ease of fabrication, low materials and energy budget. However, organic materials have short exciton diffusion length and poor charge mobility, which can greatly decrease the performance of polymer solar cells. These challenges can be effectively overcome through the use of the bulk heterojunc...

Highly efficient polymer solar cells with a tandem structure are fabricated by using two excellent photovoltaic polymers and a highly transparent intermediate recombination layer. Power conversion -efficiencies over 10% can be realized with a photovoltaic response within 800 nm.

A transparent, flexible contact is developed using Ni nanoparticles and Ag nanowires and demonstrated on free-standing, polymer embedded, Si microwire solar cells. Contact yields of over 99% and a series resistance of 14 Ω cm² are demonstrated.

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...