In this article, we describe a simple, low-cost, and environment friendly sol-gel technique to form an effective protective Y2O3 layer over the core ZnO surface. The synthesized ZnO/Y2O3 core/shell nanoparticles have been studied for the investigation of morphology, purity, structure, luminescence, and electronic properties using different characterization techniques. The average particle size has been calculated to be 40 nm (approx). Scanning electron microscopy images show that the synthesized nanomaterials have particle-like morphology with spherical shape while high-resolution transmission electron microscopy analysis confirms their core/shell structure. Furthermore, ZnO/Y2O3 sample has been investigated as an electron transport layer (ETL) in inverted organic solar cell (OSC) with a blend of poly{4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b’]dithio phene-2,6-diyl-alt-3-fluoro-2-[(2ethylhexyl)carbonyl]thieno [3,4-b]thiophene-4,6-diyl} (PTB7), and [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC71BM) as an active layer. On comparing with the standard device having pure ZnO as ETL, the power conversion efficiency of PTB7:PC71BM based device with ZnO/Y2O3 as ETL is efficiently improved from 5.77% to 6.22%. This study provides an economical method to increase the efficiency of OSCs.

中文翻译：

---

使用溶胶-凝胶合成的 ZnO/Y$_{2}$O$_{3}$ 核/壳纳米粒子作为电子传输层实现倒置有机太阳能电池

在本文中，我们描述了一种简单、低成本且环境友好的溶胶-凝胶技术，可在核心 ZnO 表面形成有效的 Y2O3 保护层。已经使用不同的表征技术研究了合成的 ZnO/Y2O3 核/壳纳米粒子，用于形态、纯度、结构、发光和电子特性的研究。经计算，平均粒径为 40 nm（大约）。扫描电子显微镜图像显示合成的纳米材料具有球形的颗粒状形态，而高分辨率透射电子显微镜分析证实了它们的核/壳结构。此外，已将 ZnO/Y2O3 样品作为倒置有机太阳能电池 (OSC) 中的电子传输层 (ETL) 与聚{4,8-双[(2-乙基己基)氧基]苯并[1,2-乙：4，5-b']dithiophene-2,6-diyl-alt-3-fluoro-2-[(2ethylhexyl)carbonyl]thieno [3,4-b]thiophene-4,6-diyl} (PTB7)，和 [ 6,6]-苯基-C71-丁酸甲酯（PC71BM）作为活性层。与具有纯ZnO作为ETL的标准器件相比，以ZnO/Y2O3作为ETL的PTB7:PC71BM基器件的功率转换效率从5.77%有效提高到6.22%。这项研究提供了一种经济的方法来提高 OSC 的效率。