Organic/Inorganic Hybrid Photovoltaic Cells Based on Substitutionally Doped Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes

Abstract

In this work we have reported low cost solar cells which can be processed to scalability by depositing direct and uniform films using airbrushing, inkjet printing, or spin-coating techniques. We have synthesized single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) by catalytic Chemical Vapor Deposition (cCVD) method, which were subsequently doped with boron for photovoltaic applications. The carbon nanotubes were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The solar cell devices were fabricated by depositing a uniform dispersion of b-SWNT films on n-Si creating numerous heterojunctions. These studies are the first in which b-SWNTs have been utilized directly for photo-generation.