Issue 10, 2011
From the journal:

Energy & Environmental Science

Applications of ZnO in organic and hybrid solar cells

Jia Huang,*a   Zhigang Yinb  and  Qingdong Zheng*b  

* Corresponding authors

a Center for Nanophysics and Advanced Materials, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
E-mail: jhuang17@umd.edu

b State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 155 Yangqiao West Road, Fuzhou, Fujian, P. R. China
E-mail: qingdongzheng@fjirsm.ac.cn

Abstract

As an n-type inorganic semiconductor, ZnO has been widely used in organic solar cells (OSCs) and hybrid solar cells (HSCs) due to its salient characteristics such as low cost, easy synthesis, non-toxicity, high stability, and good optoelectronic properties. This article reviews the applications of ZnO in solar cells, including ZnO/organic HSCs, and OSCs with ZnO acting as electrode buffer layers or transparent electrodes. For ZnO/organic HSCs, ZnO serves as the electron acceptor material, while organic semiconductors act as electron donor materials. For the buffer layers or electrode applications, ZnO is used as an electron collection and hole blocking material where its structure plays an important role in the determination of the device performance (e.g., power conversion efficiency, lifetime, stability, etc.). Special emphasis goes to the device performance of OSCs and HSCs, which depends not only on the active materials and the device configurations, but also on the structural characteristics of the ZnO buffer layer. Finally, we briefly give an analysis on the opportunities and challenges for this promising semiconductor in OSCs and HSCs.

Graphical abstract: Applications of ZnO in organic and hybrid solar cells

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C1EE01873F
Article type
Perspective
Submitted
02 Jun 2011
Accepted
15 Jul 2011
First published
19 Aug 2011

Energy Environ. Sci., 2011,4, 3861-3877

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Applications of ZnO in organic and hybrid solar cells

J. Huang, Z. Yin and Q. Zheng, Energy Environ. Sci., 2011, 4, 3861 DOI: 10.1039/C1EE01873F

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