The present study demonstrated the direct application of poly(3-hexylthiophene) benzyl-di-n-octyl-phosphine oxide (P3HT-DOPO) functionalized ZnO nanoparticles (P3HT-DOPO@ZnO) as active layer of hybrid bulk heterojunction solar cells. P3HT-DOPO@ZnO Scheme 1 nanocomposites were synthesized by direct grafting of P3HT-DOPO, which was prepared via Suzuki-Miyaura reaction between P3HT-Br and p-benzyl-di-n-octylphosphine oxide acid. The resulting P3HT-DOPO@ZnO nanocomposites possess a well-defined interface, thus significantly promoting the dispersion of ZnO nanoparticles within the P3HT matrix and facilitating the electronic interaction between these two components, resulting in a more efficient photoinduced charge transfer than that of in physical mixture of P3HT and ZnO nanoparticles. The hybrid photovoltaic device of P3HT-DOPO@ZnO performance exhibited an improved device efficiencies as high as 0.077%, with J(sc)=1.05 mA/cm(2), V-oc = 0.34 V and a FF=0.22 under AM 1.SG illumination with 100 mW/cm(2) light intensity. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.