Govindraju, S.Ntholeng, N.Ranganathan, K.Sikhwivhilu, L.M.Moloto, N.Moloto, M.J.2016-11-222016-11-222016Govindraju, S. et al. 2016. The effect of structural properties of Cu2Se/polyvinylcarbazole nanocomposites on the performance of hybrid solar cells. Journal of Nanomaterials, Article number 9592189.1687-4110 (Print)1687-4129 (Online)http://hdl.handle.net/10539/21469It has been said that substitution of fullerenes with semiconductor nanocrystals in bulk heterojunction solar cells can potentially increase the power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of these devices far beyond the 10% mark. However new semiconductor nanocrystals other than the potentially toxic CdSe and PbS are necessary. Herein we report on the synthesis of Cu2Se nanocrystals and their incorporation into polyvinylcarbazole (PVK) to form polymer nanocomposites for use as active layers in hybrid solar cells. Nearly monodispersed 4 nm Cu2Se nanocrystals were synthesized using the conventional colloidal synthesis. Varying weight % of these nanocrystals was added to PVK to form polymer nanocomposites. The 10% polymer nanocomposite showed retention of the properties of the pure polymer whilst the 50% resulted in a complete breakdown of the polymeric structure as evident from the FTIR, TGA, and SEM. The lack of transport channels in the 50% polymer nanocomposite solar cell resulted in a device with no photoresponse whilst the 10% polymer nanocomposite resulted in a device with an open circuit voltage of 0.50 V, a short circuit current of 7.34 mA/cm2, and a fill factor of 22.28% resulting in a PCE of 1.02%.enCopyright © 2016 S. Govindraju et al.This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Solar cellsHeterojunctionsNanocompositesNanocrystalsOpen circuit voltagePolymer solar cellsPolymersSemiconducting selenium compoundsSemiconductor devicesBulk heterojunction solar cellsColloidal synthesisHybrid solar cellsPolymer nanocompositePolymeric structuresPolyvinylcarbazolePower conversion efficienciesSemiconductor nanocrystalsArticle