Selective carrier transport enhancement in bulk-heterojunction organic photovoltaics with nitrogen or boron doped carbon nanotubes

We present the remarkable performance improvement of organic solar cells upon incorporating N- or B-doped carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into the organic semiconductor active layer. A small amount (0.2-5.0 wt%) of doped multi-walled CNTs are added to the bulk-heterojuction of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and 1-(3-methoxycarbonyl) propyl-1-phenyl[6,6]C₆₁ (PCBM). Unlike undoped metallic multi-walled CNTs, which cause undesired electron-hole recombination, N- or B-doped CNTs uniformly dispersed in the active layer selectively enhance electron or hole transport, respectively, and eventually help carrier collection. Specifically, the incorporation of 1.0 wt% B-doped CNTs results in a balanced electron and hole transport and accomplishes a power conversion efficiency improvement from 3.0% (conventional control cells without CNTs) to 4.1%.