Highly dendritic polythiophene/silver (PT/Ag) nanocomposite for solar energy applications

Abstract

P OLYTHIOPHENE/SILVER (PT/Ag) nanocomposite has been synthesized and characterized.Morphological studies have been made to elucidate the structure of the formed nanocomposite. The morphological studies revealed that the formed nancomposite is highly dendritic forming tree like structure. A bulk heterojunction solar cell (BHJSC) has been built using the prepared nanocomposite as photo active layer. The solar cell parameters such as open circuit voltage Voc, short circuit current Isc and fill factor FF have been determined via current-voltage I-V characteristic. The maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) obtained from I-V characteristic was 14.2 % which is much higher than that obtained from other commercial polythiophene based solar cells (SC). The enhanced PCE was attributed to the superior highly dendritic structure of the formed nanocomposite which provides charge transfer (CT) pathways and facilitates separation of the formed excitons into free electrons and holes. As far as we know none of these characteristics have been reached before in the open literature for PT based solar cells.