Enhanced Charge-Carrier Transport through Shorter Carbon Nanotubes in Organic Photovoltaics

We demonstrate for the first time the efficiency improvement of organic photovoltaics by the addition of shorter multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) generated by size sorting. The different size MWNTs were generated by size sorting a batch of carboxylated MWNTs and were introduced as charge carriers in poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) bulk heterojunction photovoltaic cells. As compared to a control with only PCBM, the addition of the long and short MWNT resulted in 12 and 34% improvement in short circuit current density (Jsc) respectively. The results indicate that length of carbon nanotubes is an important consideration in photovoltaic and possibly other nanoelectronic devices.