A Review on the Two-Dimensional Graphene Exploited in Organic Solar Cells Applications

Abstract:

Energy production and storage are both issues with increasing demands for improved performance and the requirement for greener energy resources constitute immense research interest. Graphene, (Gr) has incurred intense interest since its free standing form was isolated in 2004. Gr has immense potential to be used for low-cost, flexible, and highly efficient organic solar cells (OSC) due to its excellent electron-transport properties and extremely high carrier mobility. Numerous Gr-based OSC have been reported, in which Gr serves as different parts of the cell. One of the reasons for the current interest in Gr is the great potential for transparent conductive electrode (i.e. anode or cathode) in OSC. Gr is an ideal two-dimensional material which can be assembled into film electrodes with good transparency, high conductivity, and low roughness. Besides the potential to act as a transparent conductive electrode, Gr also has other attractive properties for solar devices. For example, Gr has been incorporated into photo-active conjugated polymers to improve the excitons (e^-/h⁺ pairs) dissociation and the charge-transport properties of the materials. Additionally, Gr also has potential to be used as an interfacial photo-active layer, since its band gap and band-position can be induced and tuned via chemical functionalization or by controlling the size of the Gr sheets. Although Gr is still a relatively new material it has already made a wide and diverse impact and this review will enlighten us towards using Gr as a novel material for future energy storage/generation applications.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volume 1109)
• Pages: 514-518
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.1109.514
• Online since: June 2015
• Authors: M.S. Shamsudin*, S.M. Sanip
• Keywords: Additives, Conductive Electrode, Graphene, Interfacial Layer, Solar Cells

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