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Abstract
Here we explore the optimization and characterization of organic photovoltaic cells using nanostructured electron collectors. We used ZnO nanorods, a widely studied material in this field, as the collector material, and we synthesized them through an electrochemical deposition technique on ITO glass substrates. We adjusted the electrochemical synthesis temperature to 70°C for one (1) hour using a reduction potential of −1.0 V for the ZnO nanorod synthesis process. We characterized the resulting films by XRD, SEM, and XPS and used the ZnO/ITO films as the cathode in the fabricated photovoltaic cells. We constructed seven devices and evaluated the influence of ZnO, the conjugated polymer P3HT, and the fullerene derivative PCBM as active materials, as well as the classic and inverted cell structure configurations. We recorded J-V characteristic curves for the constructed devices and we found that those without ZnO nanorods had a better performance. The best results were obtained with the classic PHJ-OPV Glass/ITO/MoO3 (5 nm) /P3HT:PCBM/LiF (1 nm) /Al (100 nm) configuration where Jsc = 4.9 mA/cm2, Voc = 0.4 V, and FF = 34.9 under illumination; the power conversion efficiency (η) was 0.7 %.
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