Fabrication of Photovoltaic Cell from Ruthenium Containing Polymer Using Layer by Layer Polyelectrolytes Adsorption Technique

Abstract

Multilayer photovoltaic devices were fabricated by the sequence adsorption of different polyelectrolytes. A ruthenium terpyridine complex containing poly(p-phenylenevinylene) was used as the polycation layer. This polymer has been shown to exhibit large photo-sensitivity due to the presence of the ruthenium complex, which has relatively long-lived excited state. This polymer absorbs strongly in the visible region at ca. 480-550 nm and it can act as the electron transporter. Sulfonated polyaniline was used as the hole-transporting polyanion layer. The ITO/(polyanion/polycation) n/A1 devices were found to exhibit photovoltaic properties under the illumination of AM1 solar radiation. The short-circuit current I sc, open-circuit voltage V oc, and the fill factor FF were measured to be 14 μA/cm 2, 0.84 V and 0.16 respectively. It was found that the power conversion efficiencies of the devices were dependent on the device thickness. This simple layer-by-layer self-assembly method allowed us to control the devices thickness accurately.