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Nanomaterials
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Nanostructured Materials for Organic Solar Cells
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Nanostructured Materials for Organic Solar Cells

A special issue of Nanomaterials (ISSN 2079-4991). This special issue belongs to the section "Solar Energy and Solar Cells".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 10000

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Sae Byeok Jo

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
University of Washington, Seattle, United States
Interests: organic solar cells; perovskite; ultrafast dynamics; nanostructures

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Organic solar cells have attracted tremendous attention due to their feasibility toward low-cost and large-scale production, even on flexible substrates. For the last 30 years, the chemical versatility of organic semiconductors has enabled breakthroughs in various aspects of organic solar cells, including photon harvesting, energy loss, mechanical robustness, and environmental stability. In particular, their capability for fine tuning multiscale morphology in the case of hierarchical nanostructures in multicomponent systems has led to a transcendence in photovoltaic performance, reaching toward that of traditional inorganic and hybrid solar cell technologies.

This Special Issue of Nanomaterials aims to cover the most recent advances in nanostructured materials for organic solar cells, including but not limited to material design, fabrications, physical and chemical characterizations, and stability. We invite original papers in various formats, including full papers, communications, and reviews. The potential topics are as follows.

  1. Development, synthesis and fabrication of organic semiconductors for photovoltaic applications;
  2. Innovative fabrication methods for the nanostructured organic thin films for photovoltaic applications;
  3. Binary, ternary, quaternary, and multicomponent nanostructures in organic thin films for photovoltaic applications;
  4. Design, fabrication, and modeling of optical nanostructures for photovoltaic applications;
  5. In-depth analyses of energy loss, charge generation, recombination, and collection in nanostructured organic thin films;
  6. In-depth characterizations of multiscale morphologies in organic multicomponent systems for photovoltaic applications;
  7. Original approaches for the optimization of multiscale morphologies and crystallographic structures;
  8. Original approaches for the characterization of nanostructures for photovoltaic applications;
  9. Large-scale, low-cost, and reproducible fabrication of nanostructured organic photovoltaic devices;
  10. Flexible, transparent, and multifunctional organic nanostructures for photovoltaic applications;
  11. Environmentally friendly fabrication of nanostructured organic thin films for photovoltaic applications;
  12. Other recent advances in nanostructured organic materials for photovoltaic applications.

Dr. Sae Byeok Jo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nanomaterials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • bulk heterojunction devices
  • planar heterojunction devices
  • single-component devices
  • synthesis and characterizations
  • multiscale morphologies
  • nanostructured optical thin films
  • low-dimensional organic nanocrystals
  • flexible, transparent, and multifunctional organic nanostructures
  • charge generation, recombination, and collection
  • non-ideal energy losses
  • environmentally friendly fabrication of organic thin films
  • high-performance organic solar cells

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 4195 KiB  
Article
The Golden Fig: A Plasmonic Effect Study of Organic-Based Solar Cells
by Jessica Barichello, Paolo Mariani, Fabio Matteocci, Luigi Vesce, Andrea Reale, Aldo Di Carlo, Maurizio Lanza, Gaetano Di Marco, Stefano Polizzi and Giuseppe Calogero
Nanomaterials 2022, 12(2), 267; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12020267 - 14 Jan 2022
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2376
Abstract
An optimization work on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on both artificial and natural dyes was carried out by a fine synthesis work embedding gold nanoparticles in a TiO2 semiconductor and perfecting the TiO2 particle sizes of the scattering layer. Noble [...] Read more.
An optimization work on dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on both artificial and natural dyes was carried out by a fine synthesis work embedding gold nanoparticles in a TiO2 semiconductor and perfecting the TiO2 particle sizes of the scattering layer. Noble metal nanostructures are known for the surface plasmon resonance peculiarity that reveals unique properties and has been implemented in several fields such as sensing, photocatalysis, optical antennas and PV devices. By embedding gold nanoparticles in the mesoporous TiO2 layer and adding a scattering layer, we were able to boost the power conversion efficiency (PCE) to 10.8%, using an organic ruthenium complex. The same implementation was carried out using a natural dye, betalains, extracted from Sicilian prickly pear. In this case, the conversion efficiency doubled from 1 to 2% (measured at 1 SUN illumination, 100 mW/cm2 under solar simulation irradiation). Moreover, we obtained (measured at 0.1 SUN, 10 mW/cm2 under blue light LED irradiation) a record efficiency of 15% with the betalain-based dye, paving the way for indoor applications in organic natural devices. Finally, an attempt to scale up the system is shown, and a betalain-based- dye-sensitized solar module (DSSM), with an active area of 43.2 cm2 and a PCE of 1.02%, was fabricated for the first time. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanostructured Materials for Organic Solar Cells)
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16 pages, 5528 KiB  
Article
Optical Model and Optimization for Coherent-Incoherent Hybrid Organic Solar Cells with Nanostructures
by Xuenan Zhao, Honggang Gu, Linya Chen and Shiyuan Liu
Nanomaterials 2021, 11(12), 3187; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11123187 - 24 Nov 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1735
Abstract
Embedding nanostructures in organic solar cells (OSCs) is a well-known method to improve the absorption efficiency of the device by introducing the plasma resonance and scattering effects without increasing the active layer thickness. The introduction of nanostructures imposes greater demands on the optical [...] Read more.
Embedding nanostructures in organic solar cells (OSCs) is a well-known method to improve the absorption efficiency of the device by introducing the plasma resonance and scattering effects without increasing the active layer thickness. The introduction of nanostructures imposes greater demands on the optical analysis method for OSCs. In this paper, the generalized rigorous coupled-wave analysis (GRCWA) is presented to analyze and optimize the performance of coherent-incoherent hybrid organic solar cells (OSCs) with nanostructures. Considering the multiple reflections of light scattered within the glass substrate by the device, the correction vector g is derived, then the modified expressions for the field and absorption distribution in OSCs are provided. The proposed method is validated by comparing the simulated results of various structures with results obtained by the generalized transfer matrix method (GTMM) and the “equispaced thickness method” (ETM). The results demonstrate that the proposed method can reduce the number of simulations by at least half compared to the ETM while maintaining accuracy. With the proposed method, we discussed the device performance depending on the geometrical parameters of nanostructures, and the optimization and analysis are accomplished for single and tandem OSCs. After optimization based on the proposed method, the performance of OSCs are significantly improved, which further demonstrates the practicality of the method. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanostructured Materials for Organic Solar Cells)
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13 pages, 22906 KiB  
Article
Coarse-Grained Quantum Theory of Organic Photovoltaic Devices
by Fernando Sánchez, Vicenta Sánchez and Chumin Wang
Nanomaterials 2021, 11(2), 495; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano11020495 - 16 Feb 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1564
Abstract
Understanding the exciton dissociation process in organic solar cells is a fundamental issue for the design of high-performance photovoltaic devices. In this article, a parameterized quantum theory based on a coarse-grained tight-binding model plus non-local electron-hole interactions is presented, while the diffusion and [...] Read more.
Understanding the exciton dissociation process in organic solar cells is a fundamental issue for the design of high-performance photovoltaic devices. In this article, a parameterized quantum theory based on a coarse-grained tight-binding model plus non-local electron-hole interactions is presented, while the diffusion and recombination of excitons are studied in a square lattice of excitonic states, where a real-space renormalization method on effective chains has been used. The Hamiltonian parameters are determined by fitting the measured quantum efficiency spectra and the theoretical short-circuit currents without adjustable parameters show a good agreement with the experimental ones obtained from several polymer:fullerene and polymer:polymer heterojunctions. Moreover, the present study reveals the degree of polymerization and the true driving force at donor-acceptor interface in each analyzed organic photovoltaic device. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanostructured Materials for Organic Solar Cells)
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12 pages, 3942 KiB  
Article
Ultrafast Charge Generation Enhancement in Nanoscale Polymer Solar Cells with DIO Additive
by Tongchao Shi, Zeyu Zhang, Xia Guo, Zhengzheng Liu, Chunwei Wang, Sihao Huang, Tingyuan Jia, Chenjing Quan, Qian Xiong, Maojie Zhang, Juan Du and Yuxin Leng
Nanomaterials 2020, 10(11), 2174; https://doi.org/10.3390/nano10112174 - 30 Oct 2020
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3462
Abstract
We study the ultrafast photoexcitation dynamics in PBDTTT-C-T (P51, poly(4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)-thiophene-2-yl)-benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-alt-alkylcarbonyl-thieno[3,4-b]thiophene)) film (~100 nm thickness) and PBDTTT-C-T:PC71BM (P51:PC71BM, phenyl-C71-butyric-acid-methyl ester) nanostructured blend (∼100 nm thickness) with/without DIO(1,8-diiodooctane) additives with sub-10 fs transient absorption (TA). [...] Read more.
We study the ultrafast photoexcitation dynamics in PBDTTT-C-T (P51, poly(4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)-thiophene-2-yl)-benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-alt-alkylcarbonyl-thieno[3,4-b]thiophene)) film (~100 nm thickness) and PBDTTT-C-T:PC71BM (P51:PC71BM, phenyl-C71-butyric-acid-methyl ester) nanostructured blend (∼100 nm thickness) with/without DIO(1,8-diiodooctane) additives with sub-10 fs transient absorption (TA). It is revealed that hot-exciton dissociation and vibrational relaxation could occur in P51 with a lifetime of ~160 fs and was hardly affected by DIO. However, the introduction of DIO in P51 brings a longer lifetime of polaron pairs, which could make a contribution to photocarrier generation. In P51:PC71BM nanostructured blends, DIO could promote the Charge Transfer (CT) excitons and free charges generation with a ~5% increasement in ~100 fs. Moreover, the dissociation of CT excitons is faster with DIO, showing a ~5% growth within 1 ps. The promotion of CT excitons and free charge generation by DIO additive is closely related with active layer nanomorphology, accounting for Jsc enhancement. These results reveal the effect of DIO on carrier generation and separation, providing an effective route to improve the efficiency of nanoscale polymer solar cells. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nanostructured Materials for Organic Solar Cells)
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