Development of organic/inorganic PANI/ZnO 1D nanostructured hybrid thin film solar cell by soft chemical route

Polyaniline (PANI)/zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods hybrid solar cell device was fabricated via a two-step process. The first step involved soft chemical synthesis of ZnO nanorods thin film on the indium-doped tin oxide (ITO) substrate and subsequent annealing in air at 300 °C. The second step of involved chemisorption of PANI on the surface of the ZnO nanorods by Doctor Blade Method. The fabricated heterojunction films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM), fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), and Raman spectra. The results confirmed chemical interactions between PANI and ZnO and thus the formation of the heterojunction. Both the PANI coated pristine and annealed ZnO nanorods thin films were studied for their solar cell characteristics. The results of solar cell measurements showed that the overall light-conversion efficiency of PANI coated pristine ZnO thin film to be ~ 80% higher than for PANI coated annealed ZnO thin film. This is attributed to more effective charge separation and faster interfacial charge transferring occurred in the pristine ZnO thin films.