Impact of inkjet printed ZnO electron transport layer on the characteristics of polymer solar cells.

In this paper, we demonstrate that zinc oxide (ZnO) layers deposited by inkjet printing (IJP) can be successfully applied to the low-temperature fabrication of efficient inverted polymer solar cells (i-PSCs). The effects of ZnO layers deposited by IJP as electron transport layer (ETL) on the performance of i-PSCs based on PTB7-Th:PC70BM active layers are investigated. The morphology of the ZnO-IJP layers was analysed by AFM, and compared to that of ZnO layers deposited by different techniques. The study shows that the morphology of the ZnO underlayer has a dramatic effect on the band structure and non-geminate recombination kinetics of the active layer deposited on top of it. Charge carrier and transient photovoltage measurements show that non-geminate recombination is governed by deep trap states in devices made from ZnO-IJP while trapping is less significant for other types of ZnO. The power conversion efficiency of the devices made from ZnO-IJP is mostly limited by their slightly lower J SC, resulting from non-optimum photon conversion efficiency in the visible part of the solar spectrum. Despite these minor limitations their J-V characteristics compare very favourably with that of devices made from ZnO layer deposited using different techniques.

Design, fabrication and charge recombination analysis of an interdigitated heterojunction nanomorphology in P3HT/PC(70)BM solar cells.

In this work interdigitated heterojunction photovoltaic devices were manufactured. A donor layer of P3HT nanopillars was fabricated by soft nanoimprinting using nanoporous anodic alumina templates. Subsequently, the PC70BM acceptor layer was deposited by spin coating on top of the P3HT nanopillars using a solvent that would not dissolve any of the previous material. Anisole solvent was used because it does not dissolve the bottom donor layer of nanopillars and provides a good wettability between the two materials. Charge extraction was used to determine the charge carrier densities n on the interdigitated heterojunction under operating conditions. Moreover, transient photovoltage measurements were used to find the recombination rate constant in combination with the charge carrier density. At the same time, the interdigitated structure was also compared with bulk heterojunction and bilayer solar cells manufactured with the same polymeric and fullerene materials in order to understand the recombination loss mechanisms in the ordered and disordered nanomorphologies of the active layers.

Tunable Fabry-Pérot interferometer based on nanoporous anodic alumina for optical biosensing purposes.

Here, we present a systematic study about the effect of the pore length and its diameter on the specular reflection in nanoporous anodic alumina. As we demonstrate, the specular reflection can be controlled at will by structural tuning (i.e., by designing the pore geometry). This makes it possible to produce a wide range of Fabry-Pérot interferometers based on nanoporous anodic alumina, which are envisaged for developing smart and accurate optical sensors in such research fields as biotechnology and medicine. Additionally, to systematize the responsiveness to external changes in optical sensors based on nanoporous anodic alumina, we put forward a barcode system based on the oscillations in the specular reflection.

Nanoporous anodic alumina barcodes: toward smart optical biosensors.

Toward a smart optical biosensor based on nanoporous anodic alumina (NAA): by modifying the pore geometry in nanoporous anodic alumina we are able to change the effective medium at will and tune the photoluminescence of NAA. The oscillations in the PL spectrum are converted into exclusive barcodes, which are useful for developing optical biomedical sensors in the UV-Visible region.