Optical-quality transparent, conducting polyaniline (PANI) thin films are suitable candidates for efficient counter electrodes for high-performance solar cells. In the first part of this work, the synthesis of highly uniform and homogenous nanostructured PANI films is reported. The film properties were assessed via scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, optical profilometry, spectrophotometry, and conductimetry. Simultaneous modeling, optimization and physical characterization of the PANI nanostructured films have not received much attention in the literature. Hence, in the second part, a multi-objective optimization approach with three objectives, namely minimum film thickness, maximum transparency, and maximum conductivity, was performed based on artificial neural network models with a novel k-fold cross-validation technique. The developed models can accurately predict the film characteristics in a wide range of design variables with most residuals remarkably less than 1.0%. Furthermore, after optimization, conductivity was increased three-fold (~ 2.2 × 10−1 S/cm) at a good level of transparency (~ 55%), which suit solar cell applications.

中文翻译：

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用于太阳能电池应用的导电聚苯胺纳米结构薄膜的合成和表征

光学质量的透明导电聚苯胺 (PANI) 薄膜是高性能太阳能电池高效反电极的合适候选者。在这项工作的第一部分，报道了高度均匀和均匀的纳米结构 PANI 薄膜的合成。通过扫描电子显微镜、原子力显微镜、光学轮廓测定法、分光光度测定法和电导测定法评估薄膜特性。PANI 纳米结构薄膜的同时建模、优化和物理表征在文献中并未受到太多关注。因此，在第二部分中，基于具有新型 k 折交叉验证技术的人工神经网络模型，执行了具有三个目标（即最小薄膜厚度、最大透明度和最大电导率）的多目标优化方法。开发的模型可以准确预测各种设计变量中的薄膜特性，大多数残差显着小于 1.0%。此外，经过优化后，电导率增加了三倍（~ 2.2 × 10−1 S/cm），透明度良好（~55%），适合太阳能电池应用。