Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 19, 2026
Well-aligned Vertically Oriented ZnO Nanorod Arrays and their Application in Inverted Small Molecule Solar Cells
Published on: April 25, 2018
Niobium doped zinc oxide nanorods as an electron transport layer for high-performance inverted polymer solar cells
Hina Naz1, Rai Nauman Ali1, Qing Liu1
1Department of Materials Science & Engineering, CAS Key Lab of Materials for Energy Conversion, Synergetic Innovation Center of Quantum Information & Quantum Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China.
Abstract:
The wet chemical synthesis, characterization and applications of Nb doped ZnO nanorods in bulk heterojunction inverted polymer solar cells are presented in this paper. Zn1-xNbxO with x ranging from 0.01 to 0.07 were successfully synthesized using a novel facile solution-processed wet chemical method. The structural and optical properties of the undoped and Nb doped ZnO nanorods were investigated by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, UV-visible near infrared, and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopies. A clear red shift was observed in the absorption spectra of Nb doped samples compared to the undoped ZnO nanorods. The defect emission peak in the PL spectrum of the Nb doped nanorods completely disappeared at the highest dopant concentration of x=0.07. These undoped and Nb doped ZnO nanorods, in amalgamation with PTB7-Th:PC71BM, were used in the inverted polymer solar cells as an electron transport layer which gives better power conversion efficiencies compared to the pure nanorods.
