Polymer photovoltaic wires based on aligned carbon nanotube fibers

Abstract

Compared with the conventional planar structure, a wire-shaped polymer solar cell which is weavable exhibits unique and promising applications. However, it is rare to realize such a useful structure in polymer solar cells due to the difficulty in finding appropriate electrodes. Herein, we have fabricated polymer photovoltaic wires by using aligned carbon nanotube fibers as electrodes. The high flexibility, high electrical conductivity, and elaborate nanostructure of the nanotube fiber electrode enables an effective charge separation and transport. The resulting wire cell showed an open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density and fill factor of 0.42 V, 0.98 mA cm⁻² and 0.36, respectively, which produce an energy conversion efficiency of 0.15%.