@article{AlbrechtSchindlerKurpiersetal.2012, author = {Albrecht, Steve and Schindler, Wolfram and Kurpiers, Jona and Kniepert, Juliane and Blakesley, James C. and Dumsch, Ines and Allard, Sybille and Fostiropoulos, Konstantinos and Scherf, Ullrich and Neher, Dieter}, title = {On the field dependence of free charge carrier generation and recombination in blends of PCPDTBT/PC70BM influence of solvent additives}, series = {The journal of physical chemistry letters}, volume = {3}, journal = {The journal of physical chemistry letters}, number = {5}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {1948-7185}, doi = {10.1021/jz3000849}, pages = {640 -- 645}, year = {2012}, abstract = {We have applied time-delayed collection field (TDCF) and charge extraction by linearly increasing voltage (CELIV) to investigate the photogeneration, transport, and recombination of charge carriers in blends composed of PCPDTBT/PC70BM processed with and without the solvent additive diiodooctane. The results suggest that the solvent additive has severe impacts on the elementary processes involved in the photon to collected electron conversion in these blends. First, a pronounced field dependence of the free carrier generation is found for both blends, where the field dependence is stronger without the additive. Second, the fate of charge carriers in both blends can be described with a rather high bimolecular recombination coefficients, which increase with decreasing internal field. Third, the mobility is three to four times higher with the additive. Both blends show a negative field dependence of mobility, which we suggest to cause bias-dependent recombination coefficients.}, language = {en} } @article{AlbrechtSchaeferLangeetal.2012, author = {Albrecht, Steve and Schaefer, Sebastian and Lange, Ilja and Yilmaz, Seyfullah and Dumsch, Ines and Allard, Sybille and Scherf, Ullrich and Hertwig, Andreas and Neher, Dieter}, title = {Light management in PCPDTBT:PC70BM solar cells: A comparison of standard and inverted device structures}, series = {Organic electronics : physics, materials and applications}, volume = {13}, journal = {Organic electronics : physics, materials and applications}, number = {4}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, issn = {1566-1199}, doi = {10.1016/j.orgel.2011.12.019}, pages = {615 -- 622}, year = {2012}, abstract = {We compare standard and inverted bulk heterojunction solar cells composed of PCPDTBT:PC70BM blends. Inverted devices comprising 100 nm thick active layers exhibited short circuit currents of 15 mA/cm(2), 10\% larger than in corresponding standard devices. Modeling of the optical field distribution in the different device stacks proved that this enhancement originates from an increased absorption of incident light in the active layer. Internal quantum efficiencies (IQEs) were obtained from the direct comparison of experimentally derived and modeled currents for different layer thicknesses, yielding IQEs of similar to 70\% for a layer thickness of 100 nm. Simulations predict a significant increase of the light harvesting efficiency upon increasing the layer thickness to 270 nm. However, a continuous deterioration of the photovoltaic properties with layer thickness was measured for both device architectures, attributed to incomplete charge extraction. On the other hand, our optical modeling suggests that inverted devices based on PCPDTBT should be able to deliver high power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of more than 7\% provided that recombination losses can be reduced.}, language = {en} } @article{SchattauerReinholdAlbrechtetal.2012, author = {Schattauer, Sylvia and Reinhold, Beate and Albrecht, Steve and Fahrenson, Christoph and Schubert, Marcel and Janietz, Silvia and Neher, Dieter}, title = {Influence of sintering on the structural and electronic properties of TiO2 nanoporous layers prepared via a non-sol-gel approach}, series = {Colloid and polymer science : official journal of the Kolloid-Gesellschaft}, volume = {290}, journal = {Colloid and polymer science : official journal of the Kolloid-Gesellschaft}, number = {18}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {New York}, issn = {0303-402X}, doi = {10.1007/s00396-012-2708-9}, pages = {1843 -- 1854}, year = {2012}, abstract = {In this work, a nonaqueous method is used to fabricate thin TiO2 layers. In contrast to the common aqueous sol-gel approach, our method yields layers of anatase nanocrystallites already at low temperature. Raman spectroscopy, electron microscopy and charge extraction by linearly increasing voltage are employed to study the effect of sintering temperature on the structural and electronic properties of the nanocrystalline TiO2 layer. Raising the sintering temperature from 120 to 600 A degrees C is found to alter the chemical composition, the layer's porosity and its surface but not the crystal phase. The room temperature mobility increases from 2 x 10(-6) to 3 x 10(-5) cm(2)/Vs when the sinter temperature is increased from 400 to 600 A degrees C, which is explained by a better interparticle connectivity. Solar cells comprising such nanoporous TiO2 layers and a soluble derivative of cyclohexylamino-poly(p-phenylene vinylene) were fabricated and studied with regard to their structural and photovoltaic properties. We found only weak polymer infiltration into the oxide layer for sintering temperatures up to 550 A degrees C, while the polymer penetrated deeply into titania layers that were sintered at 600 A degrees C. Best photovoltaic performance was reached with a nanoporous TiO2 film sintered at 550 A degrees C, which yielded a power conversion efficiency of 0.5 \%. Noticeably, samples with the TiO2 layer dried at 120 A degrees C displayed short-circuit currents and open circuit voltages only about 15-20 \% lower than for the most efficient devices, meaning that our nonaqueous route yields titania layers with reasonable transport properties even at low sintering temperatures.}, language = {en} } @article{AlbrechtJanietzSchindleretal.2012, author = {Albrecht, Steve and Janietz, Silvia and Schindler, Wolfram and Frisch, Johannes and Kurpiers, Jona and Kniepert, Juliane and Inal, Sahika and Pingel, Patrick and Fostiropoulos, Konstantinos and Koch, Norbert and Neher, Dieter}, title = {Fluorinated Copolymer PCPDTBT with enhanced open-circuit voltage and reduced recombination for highly efficient polymer solar cells}, series = {Journal of the American Chemical Society}, volume = {134}, journal = {Journal of the American Chemical Society}, number = {36}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0002-7863}, doi = {10.1021/ja305039j}, pages = {14932 -- 14944}, year = {2012}, abstract = {A novel fluorinated copolymer (F-PCPDTBT) is introduced and shown to exhibit significantly higher power conversion efficiency in bulk heterojunction solar cells with PC70BM compared to the well-known low-band-gap polymer PCPDTBT. Fluorination lowers the polymer HOMO level, resulting in high open-circuit voltages well exceeding 0.7 V. Optical spectroscopy and morphological studies with energy-resolved transmission electron microscopy reveal that the fluorinated polymer aggregates more strongly in pristine and blended layers, with a smaller amount of additives needed to achieve optimum device performance. Time-delayed collection field and charge extraction by linearly increasing voltage are used to gain insight into the effect of fluorination on the field dependence of free charge-carrier generation and recombination. F-PCPDTBT is shown to exhibit a significantly weaker field dependence of free charge-carrier generation combined with an overall larger amount of free charges, meaning that geminate recombination is greatly reduced. Additionally, a 3-fold reduction in non-geminate recombination is measured compared to optimized PCPDTBT blends. As a consequence of reduced non-geminate recombination, the performance of optimized blends of fluorinated PCPDTBT with PC70BM is largely determined by the field dependence of free-carrier generation, and this field dependence is considerably weaker compared to that of blends comprising the non-fluorinated polymer. For these optimized blends, a short-circuit current of 14 mA/cm(2), an open-circuit voltage of 0.74 V, and a fill factor of 58\% are achieved, giving a highest energy conversion efficiency of 6.16\%. The superior device performance and the low band-gap render this new polymer highly promising for the construction of efficient polymer-based tandem solar cells.}, language = {en} }