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Carbon nanotube film replacing silver in high-efficiency solid-state dye solar cells employing polymer hole conductor

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Abstract

A semitransparent, flexible single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) film was efficiently used in place of evaporated silver as the counter electrode of a poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polymer-based solid-state dye solar cell (SSDSC): the solar-to-electrical energy conversion efficiency of the SWCNT-SSDSC was 4.8 % when it was 5.2 % for the Ag-SSDSC. The efficiency difference stemmed from a 0.1-V difference in the open-circuit voltage, whose reason was speculated to be related to the different recombination processes in the two types of SSDSCs.

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Acknowledgments

Financial assistance has been provided by the Swedish Energy Agency, the STandUP for Energy program, the Swedish Research Council (VR), the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, and the Aalto University project MIDECNB-E/FLEXCAP/MOPPI. K.A. acknowledges the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland for the Säätiöiden Post doc -pooli scholarships. J.Z. gratefully acknowledges the China Scholarship Council for a PhD study fellowship.

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Correspondence to Kerttu Aitola or Nick Vlachopoulos.

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Aitola, K., Zhang, J., Vlachopoulos, N. et al. Carbon nanotube film replacing silver in high-efficiency solid-state dye solar cells employing polymer hole conductor. J Solid State Electrochem 19, 3139–3144 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-015-2937-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-015-2937-1

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