A donor-acceptor conjugated copolymer enables the formation of nanowire systems that can be successfully introduced into bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells. A simple binary solvent mixture that makes polarity control possible allows kinetic control over the self-assembly of the crystalline polymer into a nanowire structure during the film-forming process. The enhanced photoconductivity of the nanowire-embedded photoactive layer efficiently facilitates photon harvesting in the solar cells. The resultant maximum power conversion efficiency is 8.2% in a conventional single-cell structure, revealing a 60% higher performance than in devices without nanowires.
Keywords: nanowires; polymer materials; self-assembly; solar cells.
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