Ordered Nucleation Sites for the Growth of Zinc Oxide Nanofibers
Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) offer a promising route to low cost photovoltaic (PV) technology that can be inexpensively manufactured on a large scale for use in power generation and commercial products. Solar power conversion efficiencies of laboratory scale OPV devices have recently reached ~5%; however, projected efficiencies of at least 10% will be required for commercialization. An analogous approach that has arisen recently that can potentially increase efficiencies employs metal oxide semiconductors as the electron acceptor, creating a hybrid organic-inorganic device. This approach offers the advantage that the conduction band of the oxide can be tuned in a systematic way through doping, thus potentially achieving higher photovoltages in the device. Additionally, nanostructures of these materials can be easily grown from precursor solutions, providing a technique to precisely control the nanoscale geometry. This work focuses on using ZnO, which is known to have high electron mobility (>100 cm2/Vs), as the electron acceptor. Nanofibers of ZnO can be grown from precursors such as zinc acetate or zinc nitrate to form arrays of nanofibers into which a conjugated polymer can be intercalated to form a composite PV device. The morphology of the nanofiber array is critical to the performance of the device, but current methods of nanofiber growth from a flat, polycrystalline nucleation layer allow for little morphological control. To overcome this limitation, we have created ordered arrays of ZnO nucleation sites with controllable size and spacing. Toluene solutions of diblock copolymer micelles with ZnCl2 incorporated into the micellar cores were spin-coated onto glass substrates and etched with an O2 plasma to yield hexagonally ordered arrays of ZnO nanoparticles that functioned as nucleation sites. Changing the concentration of ZnCl2 and the molecular weight and ratio of the diblock copolymer resulted in systematic variation in the size and spacing of the nucleation sites. Thermal anneal treatment provided further modification of the nucleation layer, from which ZnO nanofibers were successfully grown from solution, although at present it is not known if the geometry of the as-grown ZnO nanofibers precisely reflects that of the underlying nucleation layer. This work provides a simple and useful method for potentially controlling the nucleation of ZnO nanofibers to be used in hybrid ZnO/organic nanocomposite PV devices.
- Research Organization:
- DOESC (USDOE Office of Science (SC) (United States))
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- OSTI ID:
- 1051810
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Undergraduate Research, Vol. 6
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
The Effect of Atmosphere and ZnO Morphology on the Performance of Hybrid Poly(3-hexylthiophene)/ZnO Nanofiber Photovoltaic Devices
Ternary behavior and systematic nanoscale manipulation of domain structures in P3HT/PCBM/P3HT-b-PEO films