• Friedel, Bettina
• Kettner, Olivia

Abstract

In hybrid solar cells, a nanoscale donor/acceptor junction between an organic and an inorganic semiconductor material is mostly established by mixing the organic semiconductor with inorganic nanocrystals or by infiltration into an inorganic nanostructure scaffold. In this report, we describe the characteristics of submicron-sized cubic silicon carbide and its potential as acceptor material in hybrid photovoltaics. The SiC nanocrystals are derived from a sol-gel based precursor after carbothermal reduction. The process allows reasonable control of nanostructure size and optoelectronic properties can be altered by SiC doping via sol-gel processing additives. SiC has widely been neglected from this application in the past, because of its indirect band gap and high fabrication costs. Still, its band energies are suitable to match the HOMO/LUMO of common organic donors, providing a promising outlook for its acceptor functionality in hybrid photovoltaics. This is shown by fast-laser spectroscopy on according P3HT:SiC hybrid layers, which shows indication for potential long-lived P3HT polaron emission.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• semiconductor
• carbide
• composite
• laser spectroscopy
• Silicon