To understand the effects of Ag nanoparticles (NPs) on the performance of organic solar cells, we examined the properties of hybrid poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6,6]-phenyl-C-61-butyric-acid-methyl-ester:Ag NP solar cells using photoinduced charge extraction with a linearly increasing voltage. We find that the addition of Ag NPs into the active layer significantly enhances carrier mobility but decreases the total extracted carrier. Atomic force microscopy shows that the Ag NPs tend to phase segregate from the organic material at high concentrations. This suggests that the enhanced mobility results from carriers traversing Ag NP subnetworks, and that the reduced carrier density results from increased recombination from carriers trapped on the Ag particles. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3601742

Layered hydroxide zinc benzoate compounds with structure of layered basic metal salt (LBMS) were prepared by a hydrothermal reaction in a temperature range of 110-180 uC. The structure, chemical composition, and exfoliation reaction in alcohol solvents of the layered compounds were investigated by using XRD, TG-DTA, SEM, and TEM. Two kinds of layered phases with a basal spacing of 1.93 and 1.47 nm were obtained by the hydrothermal reaction. The chemical formulas for the 1.93 and 1.47 nm layered phases can be written as Zn(OH) 1.66 (C 6 H 5 COO) 0.34 ?0.24H 2 O and Zn(OH) 1.14 (C 6 H 5 COO) 0.86 , respectively. The 1.93 and 1.47 nm layered phases show plate-like and fibrous particle morphology, respectively. Both of the layered phases can be exfoliated in alcohol solvents. The exfoliated nanosheets of the 1.93 nm layered phase can be curled into the nanotubes of Zn(OH) 2 . Nanobeltlike and nanoflower-like particles of Zn(OH) 2 were formed by exfoliating the 1.47 nm layered phase.

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The performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) is affected strongly by sensitizer-dye adsorption behavior on TiO(2) nanocrystal electrode. This study reports quantitative relationships between DSC cell performance parameters and dye-adsorption parameters for the first time. We discovered a logarithmic relationship between short-circuit photocurrent density (J(sc)) and dye-adsorption equilibrium constant on TiO(2) surface, and a linear relationship between open-circuit potential (V(oc)) and dye-adsorption density on TiO(2) surface for DSCs. These relationships provide a convenient method for forecasting the performance of TiO(2) nanoparticles for DSCs from the dye-adsorption parameters, and also indicate future directions for the development of high-performance TiO(2) nanoparticles for DSCs.

We present a plasmonic nanostructure design by embedding a layer of hexagonal periodic metallic nanospheres between the active layer and transparent anode for bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. The hybrid structure shows broadband optical absorption enhancement from localized surface plasmon resonance with a weak dependence on polarization of incident light. We also theoretically study the optimization of the design to enhance the absorption up to 1.90 times for a typical hybrid active layer based on a low band gap material. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3577611

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