A Water-Soluble Hybrid Material of Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes with an Amphiphilic Poly(phenyleneethynylene): Preparation, Characterization, and Photovoltaic Properties

摘要

A novel rigid linear polymer poly(phenyleneethynylene) (PPE) was synthesized and the polymer exhibits good solubility in both water and common organic solvents. The interaction at both ground and excited state between this polymer and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) was studied and a water-soluble nano-scale PPE/SWNTs hybrid was fabricated, where the water solubility of SWNTs was enhanced to 1.8 mg/ml. Steady state fluorescence spectra and fluorescence lifetime decay measurements showed that the emissions from PPEs in this hybrid at excited state were efficiently quenched by the attachment of SWNTs, where an efficient energy transfer happened from PPEs to SWNTs as the electron acceptor. Using this hybrid as the active layer we fabricated a photovoltaic cell with the bulk heterojunction configuration, and it showed a photoresponse with an open circuit voltage (V{sub}(oc)) of 105 mV and a short circuit current density (I{sub}(sc)) of 28.7 μA/cm{sup}2 under standard AM 1.5 illumination (100 mW/cm{sup}2).