No abstract

A C70 fullerene-multi-walled carbon nanotube (C70-CNT) complex has been used as a component of the photoactive layer in a bulk heterojunction photovoltaic cell. As compared to a control device with only C70, the addition of CNTs led to improvements in short circuit current density (Jsc), open circuit voltage (Voc), and power conversion efficiency by 31.8, 17.5, and 69.5%, respectively. This device takes advantage of both the electron accepting feature of C70 and the high electron transport capability of CNTs. These results indicate that C70 decorated CNT is a promising additive for performance enhancement of polymer photovoltaic cells.

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We demonstrate for the first time the efficiency improvement of organic photovoltaics by the addition of shorter multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) generated by size sorting. The different size MWNTs were generated by size sorting a batch of carboxylated MWNTs and were introduced as charge carriers in poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) bulk heterojunction photovoltaic cells. As compared to a control with only PCBM, the addition of the long and short MWNT resulted in 12 and 34% improvement in short circuit current density (J sc) respectively. The results indicate that length of carbon nanotubes is an important consideration in photovoltaic and possibly other nanoelectronic devices.