A key progress in introducing single walled carbon nanotubes to photovoltaic devices
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A key progress in introducing single walled carbon nanotubes to photovoltaic devices Zeinab El‑Moussawi1 · Ali Nourdine1 · Lionel Flandin1 Received: 26 August 2020 / Accepted: 19 September 2020 © King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology 2020
Abstract This manuscript describes the use of nitrophenyl-functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes (NP-SWNT) in organic photovoltaic cells for the first time. We mainly focus on these innovative materials to scout for the replacement or doping of the universal buckminsterfullerene PCBM acceptor in the active layer. An optimization of the functional degree was first conducted for the position of energy bands and then experimentally confirmed. The morphology of the active layer was optimized with the NP-SWNT concentrations up to 20 wt% using additives and processing methods. The key step to avoid short circuits resulting from both high conductivity and high aspect ratio is controlling the NT functional degree and the film morphology. Using a specific functional degree (49 wt%), Organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices exhibit a maximum unprecedented efficiency of 0.13%, at an optimal nanotube loading of around 2 wt%, in BHJ with P3HT as the p-type semiconductor. In a leading precedent, our results constitute important progress for the application of NP-SWNTs in large area solution processed photovoltaic cells and provide insight into the role of structural organization in the device performance. Keywords Functionalized SWNT · P3HT · Semiconductor · Morphology · Organic photovoltaics
Introduction Photo-assisted devices such as batteries or solar cells are made from nano-structured semiconducting organic and/ or inorganic materials that convert light into electricity. In the context of initial efforts to exploit nanoscience in the development of nanostructure based on nanomaterials for alternative energy generation, many environmental-friendly concepts have emerged (Zhang et al. 2018,2020; Nourdine et al. 2017; El-Moussawi et al. 2019; Lecarme et al. 2019). Carbon-based solar cells comprising conjugated polymers and fullerene derivatives are among the leaders in the future photovoltaic technologies with low-cost production (Su et al. 2012). In recent years, considerable effort has been devoted to exploring non-fullerene acceptors for use to substitute fullerene derivatives in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells (Ball et al. 2014; Jiang et al. 2014; Lin et al. 2012; Sun et al. 2015). Several non-fullerene acceptors have been developed and applied in BHJ solar cells, * Ali Nourdine ali.nourdine@univ‑smb.fr 1
Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, Grenoble INP, LEPMI, 38000 Grenoble, France
among them carbon nanotubes, conjugated polymers, perylenes and inorganic semiconducting nanoparticles (Dennler et al. 2009; Hoppe and Sariciftci 2007; Li et al. 2015; Lin et al. 2015). Recently, NFs have unexpectedly boosted the efficiency of OPVs to the highest values (Cui et al. 2019; Liu et al. 2020). For carbonaceous acceptors so far, only
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