Ligand-free synthesis of aluminum-doped zinc oxide nanocrystals and their use as optical spacers in color-tuned highly efficient organic solar cells

Abstract

The color of polymer solar cells using an opaque electrode is given by the refl ected light, which depends on the composition and thickness of each layer of the device. Metal-oxide-based optical spacers are intensively studied in polymer solar cells aiming to optimize the light absorption. However, the low conductivity of materials such as ZnO and TiO 2 limits the thickness of such optical spacers to tenths of nanometers. A novel synthesis route of cluster-free Al-doped ZnO (AZO) nanocrystals (NCs) is presented for solution processing of highly conductive layers without the need of temperature annealing, including thick optical spacers on top of polymer blends. The processing of 80 nm thick optical spacers based on AZO nanocrystal solutions on top of 200 nm thick polymer blend layer is demonstrated leading to improved photocurrent density of 17% compared to solar cells using standard active layers of 90 nm in com-bination with thin ZnO-based optical spacers. These AZO NCs also open new opportunities for the processing of high-effi ciency color tuned solar cells. For the fi rst time, it is shown that applying solution-processed thick optical spacer with polymer blends of different thicknesses can process solar cells of similar effi ciency over 7% but of different colors.