Fullerene nanowires as a versatile platform for organic electronics

Abstract

The development of organic semiconducting nanowires that act as charge carrier transport pathways in flexible and lightweight nanoelectronics is a major scientific challenge. We report on the fabrication of fullerene nanowires that is universally applicable to its derivatives (pristine C(60), methanofullerenes of C(61) and C(71), and indene C(60) bis-adduct), realized by the single particle nanofabrication technique (SPNT). Nanowires with radii of 8-11 nm were formed via a chain polymerization reaction induced by a high-energy ion beam. Fabrication of a poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT): [6,6]-phenyl C(61) butyric acid methyl ester (PC(61)BM) bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaic cell including PC(61)BM nanowires with precisely-controlled length and density demonstrates how application of this methodology can improve the power conversion efficiency of these inverted cells. The proposed technique provides a versatile platform for the fabrication of continuous and uniform n-type fullerene nanowires towards a wide range of organic electronics applications.