In recent years there has been considerable interest in the fabrication of
photovoltaic devices using polymeric and organic materials. This paper pres
ents work carried out using a range of polythiophenes, including some subst
ituted with porphyrin moieties as light harvesters. Homopolymers and copoly
mers were investigated for their performance in photovoltaic devices, and t
he use of both solid polymer electrolyte and liquid electrolyte was examine
d. Both photoelectrochemical cells and Schottky devices were investigated.
The best photoelectrochemical cell was fabricated using polyterthiophene wh
ich had V-oc = 139 mV, I-sc = 123.4 muA cm(-2), fill factor = 0.38, and ene
rgy conversion efficiency = 0.02% at a halogen lamp intensity of 317 W m(-2
). The Schottky device gave a V-oc = 0.5 V and I-sc of 0.98 muA cm(-2) at a
halogen lamp intensity of 500 W m(-2). (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All
rights reserved.