Bulk-heterojunction polymer solar cells with polyaniline-silica nanocomposites as an efficient hole-collecting layer

Abstract

At first, bulk-heterojunction polymer solar cells (PSCs) with conventional configuration: ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:C60/Al, containing different blend ratios of poly(3-hexylthiophene):fullerene, (P3HT):C60 as active layer have been fabricated. The effect of replacement of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) by the prepared polyaniline-fumed silica (PANI-SiO2) nanocomposites as the hole-collecting layer (HCL) on the performance of the fabricated PSC with the optimized blending ratio of P3HT:C60 was examined in detail. According to the obtained results, it was found that the fabricated PSC with PANI-SiO2 nanocomposite containing 10% SiO2 (PANI-10% SiO2) as the HCL and P3HT:C60 with the optimized blending ratio (P3HT:33% C60) as active layer exhibited best performance with a fill factor (FF) of 0.35, compared to the PSC containing conventional PEDOT:PSS HCL with an FF of 0.32. Our demonstration suggests that PANI-SiO2 nanocomposites could be promising HCL replacing PEDOT:PSS in PSCs as well as other organic electronic devices.