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High performance of organic tandem solar cell is largely dependent on transparent and conductive intermediate layer (IML). The current work reports the design and fabrication of an IML using a simple solution process. The efficiency of a homo-tandem device with poly(3-hexylthiophene):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester as an active layer and poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate)/poly(ethylenimine) as an IML was initially found to be 3.40%. Further enhancement of the cell efficiency was achieved using silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs) of different sizes and graphene quantum dot embedded IML. A maximum efficiency of 4.03% was achieved using 7 nm Ag-NPs that contribute to a better recombination process. Also, the performance of the tandem cell was solely based on the electrical improvements indicated by the current - voltage measurements, external quantum efficiency and impedance analysis. The use of Ag-NPs in the IML has been shown to lengthen the life time of electron-hole pairs in the device. This study thus paves way to develop such efficient IMLs for more efficient tandem solar cells.

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This work covered the application of thermally reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as a hole‐transport layer (HTL) to enhance stability of normal P3HT:PCBM‐based bulk‐heterojunction solar device. This device showed approximately the same performance of device using PEDOT:PSS as HTL (3.14%). After 3 days, exposure of an unsealed device in 1 sun illumination, rGO device resulted in 67% degradation of performance, whereas samples fabricated with PEDOT:PSS or without HTL degraded to more than 88% in efficiency. By simulation into an equivalent circuit, impedance analysis demonstrated that this degradation was strongly depended on the buffer materials. The use of the thermally rGO as buffer material could reduce the change of resistance in both HTL and bulk layer as well as avoid the accumulation of space charges in the active film.