Fabrication of oriented ZnO nanopillar self-assemblies and their application for photovoltaic devices

Xiaohui Ju; Wei Feng; Kittichungchit Varutt; Tetsuro Hori; Akihiko Fujii; Masanori Ozaki

doi:10.1088/0957-4484/19/43/435706

Fabrication of oriented ZnO nanopillar self-assemblies and their application for photovoltaic devices

Nanotechnology. 2008 Oct 29;19(43):435706. doi: 10.1088/0957-4484/19/43/435706. Epub 2008 Sep 22.

Authors

Xiaohui Ju¹, Wei Feng, Kittichungchit Varutt, Tetsuro Hori, Akihiko Fujii, Masanori Ozaki

Affiliation

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, 300072 Tianjin, People's Republic of China. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Composite and Functional Materials, 300072 Tianjin, People's Republic of China. Division of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.

PMID: 21832710
DOI: 10.1088/0957-4484/19/43/435706

Abstract

Organic photovoltaic devices based on a blend of poly(3-hexylthiophene) and a fullerene have been studied by inserting oriented zinc oxide nanopillars which were fabricated by a new method at low temperature (343 K). The dependence of the photovoltaic performance on the zinc oxide morphology was investigated, and it is concluded that the oriented zinc oxide nanopillar array plays an important role in collecting photogenerated electrons and acts as a conducting path to the electrode. Insertion of the oriented zinc oxide nanopillars in the photovoltaic cells produced enhanced performance with a power conversion efficiency of 1.22% under AM1.5 illumination.