Materials and composites with the ability to convert light into electricity are essential for a variety of applications, including solar cells. The development of materials and processes needed to boost the conversion efficiency of solar cell materials will play a key role in providing pathways for dependable light to electric energy conversion. Here, we show a simple, single-step technique to synthesize photoactive nanocomposites by coupling carbon nanotubes with semiconducting quantum dots using a molecular linker. We also discuss and demonstrate the potential application of nanocomposite for the fabrication of bulk heterojunction solar cells. Cadmium selenide (CdSe) quantum dots (QDs) were attached to multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) using perylene-3, 4, 9, 10-tetracarboxylic-3, 4, 9, 10-dianhydride (PTCDA) as a molecular linker through a one-step synthetic route. Our investigations revealed that PTCDA tremendously boosts the density of QDs on MWCNT surfaces and leads to several interesting optical and electrical properties. Furthermore, the QD-PTCDA-MWCNTs nanocomposites displayed a semiconducting behavior, in sharp contrast to the metallic behavior of the MWCNTs. These studies indicate that, PTCDA interfaced between QDs and MWCNTs, acted as a molecular bridge which may facilitate the charge transfer between QDs and MWCNTs. We believe that the investigations presented here are important to discover simple synthetic routes for obtaining photoactive nanocomposites with several potential applications in the field of opto-electronics as well as energy conversion devices.
Keywords: interfacial molecular engineering; multi-walls carbon nanotubes; semi-conducting quantum dots; solar cells.