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Tönu Pullerits. Portrait.

Tönu Pullerits

Professor

Tönu Pullerits. Portrait.

Optimizing ZnO nanoparticle surface for bulk heterojunction hybrid solar cells

Author

  • Shuyan Shao
  • Kaibo Zheng
  • Karel Zidek
  • Pavel Chabera
  • Tönu Pullerits
  • Fengling Zhang

Summary, in English

The performance of hybrid solar cells composed of polymer and ZnO is mainly hindered by the defects of ZnO. Here, we investigate the effects of ZnO nanoparticle surface modification with poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) on the performance of bulk heterojunction hybrid solar cells based on poly[2-methoxy-5-(2'-ethylhexyloxy)-1,4-phenylene vinylene] (MEH-PPV) and ZnO nanoparticles. The reference device using ZnO nanoparticles as electron acceptor shows an open-circuit voltage (V-OC) of 0.83 V, a short-circuit current J(SC)) of 3.00 mA/cm(2), a fill factor (FF) of 0.46 and a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 1.15%. After modification with very small amount of PEO, the PCE will be enhanced, which is attributed to less surface traps of ZnO nanoparticles with PEO modification. With optimized PEO (0.05%) modified ZnO nanoparticles as electron acceptors, the device typically shows a V-OC of 0.86 V, a J(SC) of 3.84 mA/cm(2), a FF of 0.51 and a PCE of 1.68% due to less recombination loss of carriers, smaller series resistance, and improved electrical coupling between ZnO nanoparticle and MEH-PPV. However, further increase of PEO content to 0.3% will deteriorate device performance. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Department/s

  • Chemical Physics
  • NanoLund: Centre for Nanoscience

Publishing year

2013

Language

English

Pages

43-47

Publication/Series

Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells

Volume

118

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Elsevier

Topic

  • Atom and Molecular Physics and Optics

Keywords

  • Hybrid solar cells
  • Surface modification
  • Trap
  • ZnO

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0927-0248