For the first time, we have used melt-assisted wetting of porous alumina templates to prepare ordered core-shell nanorod arrays of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C 61 -butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) for use in polymer solar cells. We characterized these arrays using tunneling electron microscopy and conductance atomic force microscopy, which revealed the presence of phase-separated shell (p-type) and core (n-type) regions. Under illumination, we observed a variation of several picoamperes between the currents in the core and shell regions of the P3HT/PCBM nanorod arrays.
Let the sun shine in: Highly efficient and stable polymer bulk‐heterojunction solar cells can be achieved by the incorporation of vertically oriented, cross‐linked polymer nanorods (see picture). The device exhibits a record power conversion efficiency of 7.3 %.
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