Journal article
Driving fiber diameters to the limit: nanoparticle-induced diameter reductions in electrospun photoactive composite nanofibers for organic photovoltaics
- Abstract:
- Electrospun photoactive nanofibers hold significant potential for enhanced photon absorption and charge transport in organic photovoltaics. However, electrospinning conjugated polymers with fiber diameters comparable to exciton diffusion lengths for efficient dissociation, is difficult. Previously, spinning sub-100 nm poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) fibers has required the auxiliary polymer, poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO), and large antisolvent additions. Therefore, its success differs considerably across donor polymers, due to variable antisolvent addition limits before precipitation. Herein, plasmonic nanoparticle infusion into P3HT nanofibers is used to modulate viscosity and deliver a novel and unrivaled strategy to achieve reduced fiber diameters. Following PEO removal, the fibers measure 55 nm in diameter, 30% lower than any previous report – providing the shortest exciton diffusion pathways to the heterojunction upon electron acceptor infiltration. The nanoparticle-containing nanofibers present a 58% enhancement over their pristine thin-film counterparts. ~17% is ascribed to plasmonic effects, demonstrated in thin-films, and the remainder to along-fiber polymer chain alignment, introduced by electrospinning. The anisotropy of light absorbed when polarized parallel versus perpendicular to the fibers increases from 0.88 to 0.62, suggesting the diameter reduction improves the alignment, resulting in greater electrospinning-induced enhancements. Controlled by the electrospinning behavior of PEO, our platform may be adapted to contemporary donor-acceptor systems.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 10.7MB, Terms of use)
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(Preview, Supplementary materials, pdf, 3.8MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s42114-023-00788-0
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Advanced Composites and Hybrid Materials More from this journal
- Volume:
- 6
- Issue:
- 6
- Article number:
- 229
- Publication date:
- 2023-12-13
- Acceptance date:
- 2023-11-05
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2522-0136
- ISSN:
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2522-0128
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1588613
- Local pid:
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pubs:1588613
- Deposit date:
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2024-03-02
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Schofield et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2023
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © 2023, The Author(s). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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