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The purpose of this paper is to study the optical and electrical characteristics of a single-junction solar cell based on a green-colour dye vanadyl 2,9,16, 23-tetraphenoxy-29H, 31H-phthalocyanine (VOPcPhO). The use of soluble vanadyl phthalocyanine derivative makes it very attractive for photovoltaic applications due to its tunable properties and high solubility.

A photoactive layer of VOPcPhO has been sandwiched between indium tin oxide (ITO) and aluminium (Al) electrodes to produce a ITO/PEDOT:PSS/VOPcPhO/Al photovoltaic device. The VOPcPhO thin film is deposited by a simple spin coating technique. To obtain the optimal thickness for the solar cell device, different thicknesses of the photoactive layer, achieved by manipulating the spin rate, have been investigated.

The device exhibited photovoltaic effect with the values of Jsc, Voc and FF equal to 5.26 × 10-6 A/cm2, 0.621 V and 0.33, respectively. The electronic parameters of the cell have been obtained from the analysis of current-voltage characteristics measured in dark. The values of ideality factor and barrier height were found to be 2.69 and 0.416 eV, respectively. The optical examination showed that the material is sensitive to light in the UV region between 270 nm and 410 nm, as well as in the visible spectrum within the range of 630 nm and 750 nm.

The solar cell based on a single layer of vanadyl phthalocyanine derivative results in low efficiency, which can be enhanced by introducing a variety of donor materials to form bulk heterojunction solar cells.

The spin coating technique provides a simple, less expensive and effective approach for preparing thin films.

A novel thin-film, single-junction organic solar cell, fabricated by using VOPcPhO, has been investigated for the first time ever. The vanadyl phthalocyanine derivative together with a donor material will have potential application for improved efficiency of the solar cells.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) on improvement of physical and electrical properties of vanadyl phthalocyanine derivative. The correlation between the physical characteristics of the active layers, comprising vanadyl 2,9,16, 23-tetraphenoxy-29H,31H-phthalocyanine (VOPcPhO) and PCBM, and the electrical properties of metal/organic/metal devices have been studied. The use of soluble vanadyl phthalocyanine derivative makes it very attractive for a variety of applications due to its tunable properties and high solubility.

The sandwich type structures Al/VOPcPhO/Al and Al/VOPcPhO:PCBM/Al were fabricated by spin casting the active organic layers between the top and bottom (aluminum) electrodes. The stand-alone (VOPcPhO) and composite (VOPcPhO:PCBM) thin films were characterized by X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, UV/Vis and Raman spectroscopy. The electronic properties of the metal/organic/metal devices were studied using current-voltage (I-V) characteristics in dark at room temperature.

The values of barrier height for Al/VOPcPhO/Al and Al/VOPcPhO:PCBM/Al devices were obtained from the forward bias I-V curves and were found to be 0.7 eV and 0.62 eV, respectively. The present study indicates that the device employing VOPcPhO:PCBM composite film as the active layer, with better structural and morphological characteristics, results in reduced barrier height at the metal-organic film interface as compared to the one fabricated with the stand-alone film.

It is shown that doping VOPcPhO with PCBM improves the crystallinity, morphology and junction properties.

The spin coating technique provides a simple, less expensive and effective approach for preparing thin films. The soluble VOPcPhO is conveniently dissolved in a number of organic solvents.

The physical properties of the VOPcPhO:PCBM composite thin film and the electrical properties of the composite thin-film-based metal/organic/metal devices have not been reported in the literature, as far as our knowledge is concerned.