Investigating Alternative Transparent Electrodes for Photovoltaic Devices
In this project, the student will investigate the use of various composites of conducting polymer materials and metallic nanoparticles to produce a suitably inexpensive, flexible, transparent and conductive electrode material.
The performance of the composites produced will be compared to the performance of glass/ITO substrates. The conducting polymer blend PEDOT:PSS will be used in conjunction with magnetron sputtered silver nanoparticles with the aim of enhancing the conductivity of the PEDOT:PSS films produced. Silver nano-particles will be fabricated in situ on the transparent substrate using very short sputter deposition times to produce an incomplete nanostructured silver film. This approach has the advantage of inexpensively producing the nanoparticles directly in the desired location.
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