Enhanced performance by incorporation of zinc oxide nanowire array for organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells

Abstract

We study the solar power conversion efficiency in hybrid solar cells based on zinc oxide (ZnO)/antimony trisulfide (Sb2S3)/poly-3(hexylthiophene) heterojunctions. The incorporation of ZnO nanowire arrays (NAs) structure results in power conversion efficiency of 2.9%, or 20% higher than the control device. Absorption spectra and numerical simulation analysis provide strong evidence revealing that the enhanced performance is mainly induced by (1) enhanced optical absorption from light-trapping effect of NAs and (2) reduced bulk recombination rate in Sb2S3 from shortened electron injection pathway into ZnO. Significantly, numerical simulations show that the expected interface recombination increase from larger interfacial area effects is negligible.

Solution-processed solar cells based on inorganic bulk heterojunctions with evident hole contribution to photocurrent generation

“…In this experiment, TiO 2 -NA (nanorod length ca. It is also noticeable that our solar cells are quite different from the ZnO/Sb 2 S 3 /poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) hybrid solar cells fabricated by a thermally evaporated crystalline Sb 2 S 3 layer (B100 nm) into ZnO-NAs (length B100 nm, diameter B30 nm) and spin-coating a P3HT film (40 nm) over the Sb 2 S 3 layer, 26 in which the Sb 2 S 3 layer acts as the main absorber to harvest about 67% incident power and P3HT provides additional absorption to the left incident photons. S1 in the ESI.…”

Spin-coated planar Sb2S3 hybrid solar cells approaching 5% efficiency

“…Solar cells with extremely thin absorber architecture [1–6 29] reach the highest efficiencies. Planar devices have been produced via various methods such as atomic layer deposition (ALD) [32], chemical bath deposition (CBD) [27] and (rapid) thermal evaporation (R)TE [33–35]. As the latest development, spin-coated planar solar cells [31,36–38] reached an efficiencies >4%.…”

Stability Improvement of Photovoltaic Performance in Antimony Sulfide-Based Hybrid Solar Cells

“…4 Although Sb 2 S 3 -based solar cell seems to be stable in air, 1,14 stability test under the accelerated conditions has not yet been reported. In addition, various materials such as TiO 2 , 1 ZnO, [15][16][17][18] or SnO 2 19 have been utilized as an electron transporting layer (ETL) and polythiophenes, 1-4 2,2',7,7'-tetrakis(N,Ndi-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9'-spirobifluorene, 20 ZnPc, CuSCN, …”

“…4 Although Sb 2 S 3 -based solar cell seems to be stable in air, 1,14 stability test under the accelerated conditions has not yet been reported. In addition, various materials such as TiO 2 , 1 ZnO, [15][16][17][18] or SnO 2 19 have been utilized as an electron transporting layer (ETL) and polythiophenes, 1-4 2,2',7,7'-tetrakis(N,Ndi-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9'-spirobifluorene, 20 ZnPc, CuSCN, 21 MoO 3 , 22 or NiO 23 have been used as a hole transporting layer (HTL) of the Sb 2 S 3 based solar cells, however, optimization of the combinations of ETL and HTL in terms of the durability has also not yet been explored. In this context, we prepared Sb 2 S 3 -based solar cells with TiO 2 or ZnO nanoparticles for ETL in addition to poly(3-hexylthiophene)-2,5-diyl (P3HT)/ (3, 4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS), ZnPc, or MoO 3 for HTL and compared their photovoltaic properties with encapsulation by using glass and UV cutoff films under JIS C8938 conditions of 1 sun at 63…”