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Sweeping Out Electrons with Carbon-Nanotubes to Achieve High Efficiency Solar Cells. Ka Yee C. Lee, University of Chicago, DMR- 0820054 . Current-voltage Curves of solar cells with different type of MCNTs.
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Sweeping Out Electrons with Carbon-Nanotubes to Achieve High Efficiency Solar Cells Ka Yee C. Lee, University of Chicago, DMR- 0820054 Current-voltage Curves of solar cells with different type of MCNTs Luping Yu and collaborators from the University of Chicago MRSEC are working to develop highly efficient bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. They have recently created composite polymer solar cells from a combination of the semiconducting polymer, PTB7, PC71BM, and doped multiwall carbon nanotubes (MCNT; these MCNT are doped with N (nitrogen), an n-type dopant, and B (boron), a p-type dopant), all illustrated above.The major effect observed was the significant enhancement of the current density. Photoluminescence spectra suggest that the MCNT resides mainly in the the PC71BM phase; the luminescence quenching efficiency is unaffected by its addition. The optimal power conversion efficiency (PCE) is obtained by using 1.5% of N-MCNT, selectively sweeping out electrons from the PC71BM domain. The resulting organic solar cells have the following characteristics: photocurrent density, JSC=20.0 mA/cm2; open circuit voltage, VOC=0.70V; fill factor, FF=66.5% and record PCE=9.4%. These results point to an exciting direction of nanoscale assemblies for energy conversion [1]. [1] Manuscript submitted to Nature Materials, 2012. Work is partially supported by NSF MRSEC DMR-0820054