Flexible organic photovoltaics from zinc oxidenanowires grown on transparent and conducting single walled carbon nanotube thin films

Abstract

The fabrication of flexible organic photovoltaics (OPVs) which utilize transparent and conducting single walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) thin films as current collecting electrodes on plastic substrates in zinc oxide nanowire (ZnO NW)/poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) bulk heterojunction photovoltaic devices is reported. The bulk heterojunctions for exciton dissociation are created by directly growing ZnO nanowires from solution on the SWNT electrodes and spin coating the P3HT polymer. A maximum OPV power conversion efficiency of ∼0.6% was achieved. Our results indicate that nanotube–nanowire hybrids fabricated via solution based methods are promising for optoelectronic and energy harvesting devices.