Direct application of P3HT-DOPO@ZnO nanocomposites in hybrid bulk heterojunction solar cells via grafting P3HT onto ZnO nanoparticles

The present study demonstrated the direct application of poly(3-hexylthiophene) benzyl-di-n-octylphosphine oxide (P3HT-DOPO) functionalized ZnO nanoparticles (P3HT-DOPO@ZnO) as active layer of hybrid bulk heterojunction solar cells. P3HT-DOPO@ZnO Scheme 1 nanocomposites were synthesized by direct grafting of P3HT-DOPO, which was prepared via Suzuki-Miyaura reaction between P3HT-Br and p-benzyl-di-n-octylphosphine oxide acid. The resulting P3HT-DOPO@ZnO nanocomposites possess a well-defined interface, thus significantly promoting the dispersion of ZnO nanoparticles within the P3HT matrix and facilitating the electronic interaction between these two components, resulting in a more efficient photoinduced charge transfer than that of in physical mixture of P3HT and ZnO nanoparticles. The hybrid photovoltaic device of P3HT-DOPO@ZnO performance exhibited an improved device efficiencies as high as 0.077%, with Jsc=1.05 mA/cm2, Voc=0.34 V and a FF=0.22 under AM 1.5G illumination with 100 mW/cm2 light intensity.

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► The direct application of P3HT-DOPO@ZnO as active layer in hybrid solar cells was demonstrated.
► The P3HT-DOPO@ZnO possessed a well-defined interface and promoted the dispersion of ZnO in P3HT.
► Attributed to the improved morphology, the performance of P3HT-DOPO@ZnO solar cells was improved