Air stable photovoltaic device

Abstract

A method of forming a conducting polymer based photovoltaic device including: (a) providing a transparent first electrode; (b) providing the transparent first electrode with a layer of metal oxide nanoparticles, wherein the metal oxide is selected from the group consisting of: TiO2, TiOx, and ZnO; (c) providing the layer of metal oxide nanoparticles with a bulk hetero junction layer including metal oxide nanoparticles and a hole conducting polymer containing thermocleavable groups, wherein the metal oxide is selected from the group consisting of: TiO2, TiOx, CeO2, Nb2O5 and ZnO; (d) heating the bulk heterojunction layer, to cleave the thermally cleavable groups to produce an insoluble hole containing polymer; (e) providing the bulk heterojunction layer with a hole transporting layer; and (f) providing the hole transporting layer with a second electrode. Also a conducting polymer based photovoltaic device, and polymeric compounds suitable for use in such devices and methods.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.