Oxygen‐Terminated Nanocrystalline Diamond Film as an Efficient Anode in Photovoltaics

Abstract

The potential of using p‐doped nanocrystalline diamond as the anode for organic solar cells, because of its outstanding photostability and well‐matched energetics with organic dyes, is demonstrated. The interface dipole and open‐circuit potential can be tuned by varying the surface termination on diamond. Oxygenated nanocrystalline diamond (O‐NCD) exhibits the best photocurrent conversion among all the surface‐treated electrodes studied in this work because of its large open‐circuit potential. The good energy alignment of the valence band of O‐NCD with the HOMO of poly(3‐hexylthiophene), as well as its p‐doped characteristics, suggest that O‐NCD can replace the hole transport layer, such as PEDOT:PSS, needed for efficient performance on indium tin oxide (ITO) electrodes. If the sheet resistance and optical transparency on NCD can be further optimized, chemical‐vapor‐deposited diamond electrodes may offer a viable alternative to ITO and fluorinated tin oxide (FTO).

Nanocrystalline diamond-glass platform for the development of three-dimensional micro- and nanodevices

“…After growth, NCD films can be processed to form two or three-dimensional suspended structures [11,12] and the surface of an NCD film can be functionalized with a variety of (bio)molecules for use in biosensors [13] and solar cells [14]. Due to these excellent properties, NCD based devices such as micromechanical resonators of high Q-factor [15,16], pressure sensors for harsh environments [17,18], tunable optical lenses [19], biosensors that, for example, can detect influenza [20,21], optically transparent electrodes [22,23], CO 2 reducing electrodes [24], superconducting quantum interference devices [25], and conducting atomic force microscope tips are being developed [26].…”

Diamond-based electrodes for organic photovoltaic devices

“…Notably, the Fano resonance just quenches the diamond line and does not mean a worsening of diamond quality. Raman spectra of boron-doped diamond layers grown with different amounts of TMB (4,8,12) and for different deposition times (2,3,4). The spectra were excited by 488 nm laser radiation and offset for clarity.…”

“…However, the declining availability of indium compels us to look for an alternative solution. One possibility is to substitute ITO with carbon-based electrodes such as heavily boron-doped conductive diamond polycrystalline films [2]. Polycrystalline diamond films can be produced by a large variety of chemical deposition techniques, such as hot filament deposition [3], bias enhanced deposition [4], and Plasma-Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD) with linear antenna delivery, where precursor gases are ionized to enhance their chemical reaction rates [5,6].…”

“…Higher boron concentrations typically result in conductive systems with electrical properties comparable to metallic materials; also, superconductivity was reported by Ekimov et al [13] in heavily B-doped diamond. There are also other parameters which influence boron-doped diamond layer charge transport properties -namely, the electronic structures of boron defects, the morphology of the nanodiamond layer (the addition of boron has a strong influence on the morphology of the layers grown [12][13][14]20]), and the relative amount of sp 2 and sp 3 hybridized carbon in the nanodiamond layer [29][30][31]. The optimization of growth conditions at high boron/carbon ratios (up to 8000ppm in the gas phase during growth) can lead to low sheet resistance comparable to, or even lower than the best ITO samples.…”

Molecular orientation of lead phthalocyanine on (100) oriented single crystal diamond surfaces

“…1 Especially conductive boron-doped nanocrystalline diamond, which has a transmission of 70-80% for 150 nm thick films, is seen as an appealing electrode. 1 Especially conductive boron-doped nanocrystalline diamond, which has a transmission of 70-80% for 150 nm thick films, is seen as an appealing electrode.…”