Template-Assisted Fabrication of Highly Ordered Interpenetrating Polymeric Donor/Acceptor Nanostructures for Photovoltaic Applications

The template‐assisted fabrication of well‐ordered interpenetrating donor/acceptor nanostruc‐tures based on polymeric semiconductors on conductive substrates is reported. Arrays of free‐standing crosslinked tetraphenylbenzidine based nanorods are fabricated utilizing sacrificial AAO templates. TEM confirms the obtained donor/acceptor nanostructure morphology. The embedded nanorods show no aggregation and collapse of the rods within the film. Photoluminescence measurements reveal a more than three fold improvement in photoluminescence quenching relative to the planar bilayer architecture. The approach offers a versatile all‐solution‐based technique for the fabrication of well‐ordered bulk heterojunction films with a large donor/acceptor interface for the application in polymer/polymer photovoltaic devices. The template‐assisted fabrication of well‐ordered interpenetrating donor/acceptor networks based on organic semiconductors is described. Complete embedding without aggregation or collapsing of semiconducting nanorod arrays is possible, making templating a versatile tool for the fabrication of well‐ordered bulk heterojunction films with a large donor/acceptor interface on the nanometer scale for photovoltaic devices.