Enhancement of Photovoltaic Performance by Utilizing Readily Accessible Hole Transporting Layer of Vanadium(V) Oxide Hydrate in a Polymer-Fullerene Blend Solar Cell.
Herein, a successful application of V2O5·nH2O film as hole transporting layer (HTL) instead of



PSS in polymer solar cells is demonstrated. The V2O5·nH2O layer was spin-coated from V2O5·nH2O sol made from melting-quenching sol-gel method by directly using vanadium oxide powder, which is readily accessible and cost-effective. V2O5·nH2O (n ≈ 1) HTL is found to have comparable work function and smooth surface to that of



PSS. For the solar cell containing V2O5·nH2O HTL and the active layer of the blend of a novel polymer donor (PBDSe-DT2PyT) and the acceptor of PC71BM, the PCE was significantly improved to 5.87% with a 30% increase over 4.55% attained with



PSS HTL. Incorporation of V2O5·nH2O as HTL in the polymer solar cell was found to enhance the crystallinity of the active layer, electron-blocking at the anode and the light-harvest in the wavelength range of 400-550 nm in the cell. V2O5·nH2O HTL improves the charge generation and collection and suppress the charge recombination within the PBDSe-DT2PyT:PC71BM solar cell, leading to a simultaneous enhancement in Voc, Jsc, and FF. The V2O5·nH2O HTL proposed in this work is envisioned to be of great potential to fabricate highly efficient PSCs with low-cost and massive production.
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology , Wuhan, 430070, People's Republic of China.
Youyu
Y
Jiang
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology , Wuhan, 430070, People's Republic of China.
Shengqiang
S
Xiao
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology , Wuhan, 430070, People's Republic of China.
Biao
B
Xu
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology , Wuhan, 430070, People's Republic of China.
Chun
C
Zhan
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology , Wuhan, 430070, People's Republic of China.
Liqiang
L
Mai
Department of Physics, the Chinese University of Hong Kong , Hong Kong, People's Republic of China.
Xinhui
X
Lu
State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology , Wuhan, 430070, People's Republic of China.|Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill , Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599-3290, United States.
Wei
W
You
PEDOT:PSS; hole transporting layer; melting-quenching sol−gel method; polymer solar cell; vanadium(V) oxide hydrate