Effect of incorporation of CdS NPs on performance of PTB7: PCBM organic solar cells

• CdS NPs were synthesized using microwave synthesis technique.
• CdS NPs were incorporated in photoactive blend comprised of PTB7: PCBM.
• PCE was found to be increased in CdS NPs embedded devices.
• CdS NPs facilitates the intramolecular charge transfer from PTB7 to PCBM.
• Spectroscopic and morphological studies were carried out to understand device performance.

It has been well known that incorporation of nano-heterostructures of various metals, semiconductors and dielectric materials in the active layer of organic solar cells (OSCs) helps in improving power conversion efficiency (PCE). In the present study, we demonstrated microwave synthesis of CdS nanoparticles (NPs) for their application in one of most efficient OSCs consisting of poly[[4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-2,6-diyl] [3-fluoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl)carbonyl] thieno[3,4-b]thiophenediyl]] (PTB7): [6,6]-phenyl C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) photoactive blend. This is crucial to fully explore the promising features of low cost and scalability in organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells. Synthesized CdS NPs are slightly elongated and highly crystalline with their absorption lies in the visible region as confirmed by High resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy studies. Our experimental results for the devices in an inverted geometry having a structure ITO/ZnO/PTB7: CdS: PCBM/MoO3/Ag has shown increase in Jsc and PCE by nearly 10%. However, it was observed that this increase is only when NPs were added in the low concentration in active layer. UV–Vis absorption spectroscopy, Photoluminescence (PL) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) studies were carried out in order understand the device performance.

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