Graphene Oxide Nanoribbon as Hole Extraction Layer to Enhance Efficiency and Stability of Polymer Solar Cells

摘要

Owing to its unique 2-dimensional carbon nanostructure with unique electrical, optical, thermal, and mechanical properties, graphene has attracted a great deal of interest. While the pristine graphene is a zero-bandgap material with metal-like conductivity, graphene nanoribbon (GNR) is semiconducting with an opened bandgap induced by the quasi-one-dimensional confinement of charge carriers. However, graphene and its nanoribbons without functionalization are insoluble and infusible. The poor processability has precluded the pristine graphene materials, including GNR, for various potential applications. This limitation has been circumvented by oxidizing graphene with acids (e.g., H_2SO_4/KMnO_4) to produce graphene oxide (GO) with oxygen-containing groups (e.g., -COOH, -OH) around and on the carbon basal plane, leading to low-cost mass production of soluble graphene derivatives for potential applications.