In this study, a wet chemical method of etching indium-tin-oxide (ITO) nanorods from commercially available ITO-coated glass is proposed and its applicability to polymer solar cells (PSCs) is validated. The ITO nanorods can be fabricated within a few minutes using the proposed method. The ITO-nanorodbased PSCs show 67% and 46% improvement in short-circuit current density and power conversion efficiency, respectively, compared with devices based on flat ITO electrodes. The enhanced performance is related to the anti-reflection and light-scattering properties of ITO nanorods, which enhance incident light intensity and light-trapping properties.

Indium-tin-oxide (ITO) nanorods were fabricated in 10 min from commercially available ITO substrate using wet chemical etching method. The optical properties of the ITO nanorods were investigated using transmission spectroscopy and dark-field optical microscopy. The transmittance and light-scattering characteristics of the ITO nanorods were better than those of ITO film. The ITO nanorod layer was further used as a transparent anode in polymer light-emitting diodes (PLEDs). The brightness and current efficiency of the PLED with the ITO nanorod layer were enhanced. This performance enhancement can be attributed to the excellent optical and electrical properties of the ITO nanorod layer.

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