Conductive carbon nanosheets prepared from brominated polystyrene through ion beam irradiation and carbonization

We fabricated a conductive carbon nanosheet (CNS) film converted from brominated polystyrene (PS) and demonstrated that the CNS film can act as transparent electrode (TE) for polymeric photovoltaics (PPVs). The PS-converted CNS film was fabricated simply with spin-coating of a cost-effective PS solution, followed by stabilization via ion-beam irradiation and carbonization via heat treatment to convert PS to CNS. The analytical results revealed that the PS film was successfully stabilized by ion-beam irradiation and the conductive CNS with graphene-like structure was synthesized. The PPVs with the PS-converted CNS as a TE showed a feasible power conversion efficiency of ~0.61% under a standard 1 sun condition, thus, confirming that the ion-beam based CNS-formation approach and the PS-converted CNS can be useful in transparent electrode applications.