@article{BenduhnPiersimoniLondietal.2018, author = {Benduhn, Johannes and Piersimoni, Fortunato and Londi, Giacomo and Kirch, Anton and Widmer, Johannes and Koerner, Christian and Beljonne, David and Neher, Dieter and Spoltore, Donato and Vandewal, Koen}, title = {Impact of triplet excited states on the open-circuit voltage of organic solar cells}, series = {dvanced energy materials}, volume = {8}, journal = {dvanced energy materials}, number = {21}, publisher = {Wiley-VCH}, address = {Weinheim}, issn = {1614-6832}, doi = {10.1002/aenm.201800451}, pages = {7}, year = {2018}, abstract = {The best organic solar cells (OSCs) achieve comparable peak external quantum efficiencies and fill factors as conventional photovoltaic devices. However, their voltage losses are much higher, in particular those due to nonradiative recombination. To investigate the possible role of triplet states on the donor or acceptor materials in this process, model systems comprising Zn- and Cu-phthalocyanine (Pc), as well as fluorinated versions of these donors, combined with C-60 as acceptor are studied. Fluorination allows tuning the energy level alignment between the lowest energy triplet state (T-1) and the charge-transfer (CT) state, while the replacement of Zn by Cu as the central metal in the Pcs leads to a largely enhanced spin-orbit coupling. Only in the latter case, a substantial influence of the triplet state on the nonradiative voltage losses is observed. In contrast, it is found that for a large series of typical OSC materials, the relative energy level alignment between T-1 and the CT state does not substantially affect nonradiative voltage losses.}, language = {en} } @article{LiBenduhnLietal.2018, author = {Li, Tian-yi and Benduhn, Johannes and Li, Yue and Jaiser, Frank and Spoltore, Donato and Zeika, Olaf and Ma, Zaifei and Neher, Dieter and Vandewal, Koen and Leo, Karl}, title = {Boron dipyrromethene (BODIPY) with meso-perfluorinated alkyl substituents as near infrared donors in organic solar cells}, series = {Journal of materials chemistry : A, Materials for energy and sustainability}, volume = {6}, journal = {Journal of materials chemistry : A, Materials for energy and sustainability}, number = {38}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {2050-7488}, doi = {10.1039/c8ta06261g}, pages = {18583 -- 18591}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Three furan-fused BODIPYs were synthesized with perfluorinated methyl, ethyl and n-propyl groups on the meso-carbon. They were obtained with high yields by reacting the furan-fused 2-carboxylpyrrole in corresponding perfluorinated acid and anhydride. With the increase in perfluorinated alkyl chain length, the molecular packing in the single crystal is influenced, showing increasing stacking distance and decreasing slope angle. All the BODIPYs were characterized as intense absorbers in near infrared region in solid state, peaking at similar to 800 nm with absorption coefficient of over 280 000 cm(-1). Facilitated by high thermal stability, the furan-fused BODIPYs were employed in vacuum-deposited organic solar cells as electron donors. All devices exhibit PCE over 6.0\% with the EQE maximum reaching 70\% at similar to 790 nm. The chemical modification of the BODIPY donors have certain influence on the active layer morphology, and the highest PCE of 6.4\% was obtained with a notably high jsc of 13.6 mA cm(-2). Sensitive EQE and electroluminance studies indicated that the energy losses generated by the formation of a charge transfer state and the radiative recombination at the donor-acceptor interface were comparable in the range of 0.14-0.19 V, while non-radiative recombination energy loss of 0.38 V was the main energy loss route resulting in the moderate V-oc of 0.76 V.}, language = {en} } @article{ShivhareErdmannHoermannetal.2018, author = {Shivhare, Rishi and Erdmann, Tim and Hoermann, Ulrich and Collado-Fregoso, Elisa and Zeiske, Stefan and Benduhn, Johannes and Ullbrich, Sascha and Huebner, Rene and Hambsch, Mike and Kiriy, Anton and Voit, Brigitte and Neher, Dieter and Vandewal, Koen and Mannsfeld, Stefan C. B.}, title = {Alkyl Branching Position in Diketopyrrolopyrrole Polymers}, series = {Chemistry of materials : a publication of the American Chemical Society}, volume = {30}, journal = {Chemistry of materials : a publication of the American Chemical Society}, number = {19}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0897-4756}, doi = {10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b02739}, pages = {6801 -- 6809}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based donor acceptor copolymers have gained a significant amount of research interest in the organic electronics community because of their high charge carrier mobilities in organic field-effect transistors (OFETs) and their ability to harvest near-infrared (NIR) photons in solar cells. In this study, we have synthesized four DPP based donor-acceptor copolymers with variations in the donor unit and the branching point of the solubilizing alkyl chains (at the second or sixth carbon position). Grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) results suggest that moving the branching point further away from the polymer backbone increases the tendency for aggregation and yields polymer phases with a higher degree of crystallinity (DoC). The polymers were blended with PC70BM and used as active layers in solar cells. A careful analysis of the energetics of the neat polymer and blend films reveals that the charge-transfer state energy (E-CT) of the blend films lies exceptionally close to the singlet energy of the donor (E-D*), indicating near zero electron transfer losses. The difference between the optical gap and open-circuit voltage (V-OC) is therefore determined to be due to rather high nonradiative 418 +/- 13 mV) and unavoidable radiative voltage losses (approximate to 255 +/- 8 mV). Even though the four materials have similar optical gaps, the short-circuit current density (J(SC)) covers a vast span from 7 to 18 mA cm(-2) for the best performing system. Using photoluminescence (PL) quenching and transient charge extraction techniques, we quantify geminate and nongeminate losses and find that fewer excitons reach the donor-acceptor interface in polymers with further away branching points due to larger aggregate sizes. In these material systems, the photogeneration is therefore mainly limited by exciton harvesting efficiency.}, language = {en} }