Journal
ACS NANO
Volume 12, Issue 9, Pages 9495-9503Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.8b04848
Keywords
conducting polymer; poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate); PEDOT:PSS; silver nanowire; charge transfer; heterojunction solar cell
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Funding
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
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Embedding nanowires, such as silver nanowires (AgNWs), in a transparent conductive polymer poly-(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS) to enhance its conductivity is technologically important for improving the performances of devices comprising transparent conductive layers. Addition of nanowires in the highly conducting form of cosolvent (ethylene glycol) or mixed-cosolvent (ethylene glycol and methanol) modified PEDOT:PSS could change the nanowire structure and significantly alter the conductivity. Here, we report a simple method to embed AgNWs in PEDOT:PSS efficiently to improve its conductivity. By incorporating nanowires in the mixed cosolvent matrix prior to addition into PEDOT:PSS, this method preserves the structure of the nanowires while enabling conductivity enhancement. In contrast, the addition of AgNWs into cosolvent-premodified PEDOT:PSS leads to breaking of nanowires and conductivity impediment. The hybrid films with efficiently embedded AgNWs and mixed-cosolvent-modified PEDOT:PSS show a sheet resistance of 104 Omega/square, which is among the lowest ever reported for the as-deposited films, with conductivity enhancement of 33% relative to that of mixed-cosolvent-modified PEDOT:PSS. The resulting planar heterojunction solar cell (HSC) based on AgNW-embedded PEDOT:PSS exhibits a power conversion efficiency of greater than 15%. This demonstrates the importance of reducing sheet resistance by integrating nanowires into the PEDOT:PSS matrix as effective charge-transfer conduits interconnecting the highly conducting quinoid chains. The present approach to efficiently embed AgNWs in PEDOT:PSS could be readily extended to other nanowires or nanoparticles for improving the performance of PEDOT:PSS for applications in not just HSCs but indeed other electronic devices that require both transparent and highly conductive layers.
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