Improvement in photovoltaic performance of anthracene-containing PPE-PPV polymer-based bulk heterojunction solar cells with silver nanoparticles

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the effect of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) in the active layer of anthracene-containing poly(p-phenylene-ethynylene)-alt-poly(p-phenylene-vinylene):phenyl-C-61-butyric acid methyl ester (AnE-PVstat:PCBM)-based bulk heterojunction solar cells. By incorporating Ag NPs of 6 nm in diameter, the power conversion efficiency of AnE-PVstat:PCBM solar cells was improved to 3.10 % from a value of 2.46 % for the solar cells fabricated without nanoparticles. Moreover, ISOS-L-1 stability test showed that the lifetime of the cells was also significantly improved by doping Ag NPs into the active layer.