TY  - JOUR
A1  - Al-Sa'di, Mahmoud
A1  - Jaiser, Frank
A1  - Bagnich, Sergey A.
A1  - Unger, Thomas
A1  - Blakesley, James C.
A1  - Wilke, Andreas
A1  - Neher, Dieter
T1  - Electrical and optical simulations of a polymer-based phosphorescent organic light-emitting diode with high efficiency
JF  - Journal of polymer science : B, Polymer physics
N2  - A comprehensive numerical device simulation of the electrical and optical characteristics accompanied with experimental measurements of a new highly efficient system for polymer-based light-emitting diodes doped with phosphorescent dyes is presented. The system under investigation comprises an electron transporter attached to a polymer backbone blended with an electronically inert small molecule and an iridium-based green phosphorescent dye which serves as both emitter and hole transporter. The device simulation combines an electrical and an optical model. Based on the known highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) levels of all components as well as the measured electrical and optical characteristics of the devices, we model the emissive layer as an effective medium using the dye's HOMO as hole transport level and the polymer LUMO as electron transport level. By fine-tuning the injection barriers at the electron and hole-injecting contact, respectively, in simulated devices, unipolar device characteristics were fitted to the experimental data. Simulations using the so-obtained set of parameters yielded very good agreement to the measured currentvoltage, luminancevoltage characteristics, and the emission profile of entire bipolar light-emitting diodes, without additional fitting parameters. The simulation was used to gain insight into the physical processes and the mechanisms governing the efficiency of the organic light-emitting diode, including the position and extent of the recombination zone, carrier concentration profiles, and field distribution inside the device. The simulations show that the device is severely limited by hole injection, and that a reduction of the hole-injection barrier would improve the device efficiency by almost 50%.
KW  - conjugated polymers
KW  - high performance polymers
KW  - organic electronics
KW  - organic light-emitting diode
KW  - simulations
KW  - TCAD
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/polb.23158
SN  - 0887-6266
VL  - 50
IS  - 22
SP  - 1567
EP  - 1576
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Albrecht, Steve
A1  - Grootoonk, Bjorn
A1  - Neubert, Sebastian
A1  - Roland, Steffen
A1  - Wordenweber, Jan
A1  - Meier, Matthias
A1  - Schlatmann, Rutger
A1  - Gordijn, Aad
A1  - Neher, Dieter
T1  - Efficient hybrid inorganic/organic tandem solar cells with tailored recombination contacts
JF  - Solar energy materials & solar cells : an international journal devoted to photovoltaic, photothermal, and photochemical solar energy conversion
N2  - In this work, the authors present a 7.5% efficient hybrid tandem solar cell with the bottom cell made of amorphous silicon and a Si-PCPDTBT:PC70BM bulk heterojunction top cell. Loss-free recombination contacts were realized by combing Al-doped ZnO with either the conducting polymer composite PEDOT:PSS or with a bilayer of ultrathin Al and MoO3. Optimization of these contacts results in tandem cells with high fill factors of 70% and an open circuit voltage close to the sum of those of the sub-cells. This is the best efficiency reported for this type of hybrid tandem cell so far. Optical and electrical device modeling suggests that the efficiency can be increased to similar to 12% on combining a donor polymer with suitable absorption onset with PCBM. We also describe proof-of-principle studies employing light trapping in hybrid tandem solar cells, suggesting that this device architecture has the potential to achieve efficiencies well above 12%. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
KW  - Hybrid solar cells
KW  - Tandem solar cells
KW  - Organic solar cells
KW  - Bulk heterojunction
KW  - Efficiency optimization
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.solmat.2014.04.020
SN  - 0927-0248
SN  - 1879-3398
VL  - 127
SP  - 157
EP  - 162
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Albrecht, Steve
A1  - Janietz, Silvia
A1  - Schindler, Wolfram
A1  - Frisch, Johannes
A1  - Kurpiers, Jona
A1  - Kniepert, Juliane
A1  - Inal, Sahika
A1  - Pingel, Patrick
A1  - Fostiropoulos, Konstantinos
A1  - Koch, Norbert
A1  - Neher, Dieter
T1  - Fluorinated Copolymer PCPDTBT with enhanced open-circuit voltage and reduced recombination for highly efficient polymer solar cells
JF  - Journal of the American Chemical Society
N2  - 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.
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1021/ja305039j
SN  - 0002-7863
VL  - 134
IS  - 36
SP  - 14932
EP  - 14944
PB  - American Chemical Society
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Albrecht, Steve
A1  - Schaefer, Sebastian
A1  - Lange, Ilja
A1  - Yilmaz, Seyfullah
A1  - Dumsch, Ines
A1  - Allard, Sybille
A1  - Scherf, Ullrich
A1  - Hertwig, Andreas
A1  - Neher, Dieter
T1  - Light management in PCPDTBT:PC70BM solar cells: A comparison of standard and inverted device structures
JF  - Organic electronics : physics, materials and applications
N2  - 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.
KW  - Organic solar cells
KW  - Inverted solar cells
KW  - PCPDTBT
KW  - Low band-gap
KW  - Optical modeling
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgel.2011.12.019
SN  - 1566-1199
VL  - 13
IS  - 4
SP  - 615
EP  - 622
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Albrecht, Steve
A1  - Schindler, Wolfram
A1  - Kurpiers, Jona
A1  - Kniepert, Juliane
A1  - Blakesley, James C.
A1  - Dumsch, Ines
A1  - Allard, Sybille
A1  - Fostiropoulos, Konstantinos
A1  - Scherf, Ullrich
A1  - Neher, Dieter
T1  - On the field dependence of free charge carrier generation and recombination in blends of PCPDTBT/PC70BM influence of solvent additives
JF  - The journal of physical chemistry letters
N2  - 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.
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1021/jz3000849
SN  - 1948-7185
VL  - 3
IS  - 5
SP  - 640
EP  - 645
PB  - American Chemical Society
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Albrecht, Steve
A1  - Tumbleston, John R.
A1  - Janietz, Silvia
A1  - Dumsch, Ines
A1  - Allard, Sybille
A1  - Scherf, Ullrich
A1  - Ade, Harald W.
A1  - Neher, Dieter
T1  - Quantifying charge extraction in organic solar cells: The case of fluorinated PCPDTBT
JF  - The journal of physical chemistry letters
N2  - We introduce a new and simple method to quantify the effective extraction mobility in organic solar cells at low electric fields and charge carrier densities comparable to operation conditions under one sun illumination. By comparing steady-state carrier densities at constant illumination intensity and under open-circuit conditions, the gradient of the quasi-Fermi potential driving the current is estimated as a function of external bias and charge density. These properties are then related to the respective steady-state current to determine the effective extraction mobility. The new technique is applied to different derivatives of the well-known low-band-gap polymer PCPDTBT blended with PC70BM. We show that the slower average extraction due to lower mobility accounts for the moderate fill factor when solar cells are fabricated with mono- or difluorinated PCPDTBT. This lower extraction competes with improved generation and reduced nongeminate recombination, rendering the monofluorinated derivative the most efficient donor polymer.
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1021/jz500457b
SN  - 1948-7185
VL  - 5
IS  - 7
SP  - 1131
EP  - 1138
PB  - American Chemical Society
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Albrecht, Steve
A1  - Vandewal, Koen
A1  - Tumbleston, John R.
A1  - Fischer, Florian S. U.
A1  - Douglas, Jessica D.
A1  - Frechet, Jean M. J.
A1  - Ludwigs, Sabine
A1  - Ade, Harald W.
A1  - Salleo, Alberto
A1  - Neher, Dieter
T1  - On the efficiency of charge transfer state splitting in polymer: Fullerene solar cells
JF  - Advanced materials
KW  - organic solar cells
KW  - charge generation
KW  - geminate recombination
KW  - charge transfer states
KW  - driving force
KW  - excess energy
KW  - morphology
KW  - spectroelectrochemistry
Y1  - 2014
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201305283
SN  - 0935-9648
SN  - 1521-4095
VL  - 26
IS  - 16
SP  - 2533
EP  - 2539
PB  - Wiley-VCH
CY  - Weinheim
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Alqahtani, Obaid
A1  - Babics, Maxime
A1  - Gorenflot, Julien
A1  - Savikhin, Victoria
A1  - Ferron, Thomas
A1  - Balawi, Ahmed H.
A1  - Paulke, Andreas
A1  - Kan, Zhipeng
A1  - Pope, Michael
A1  - Clulow, Andrew J.
A1  - Wolf, Jannic
A1  - Burn, Paul L.
A1  - Gentle, Ian R.
A1  - Neher, Dieter
A1  - Toney, Michael F.
A1  - Laquai, Frederic
A1  - Beaujuge, Pierre M.
A1  - Collins, Brian A.
T1  - Mixed Domains Enhance Charge Generation and Extraction in Bulk-Heterojunction Solar Cells with Small-Molecule Donors
JF  - Advanced energy materials
N2  - The interplay between nanomorphology and efficiency of polymer-fullerene bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells has been the subject of intense research, but the generality of these concepts for small-molecule (SM) BHJs remains unclear. Here, the relation between performance; charge generation, recombination, and extraction dynamics; and nanomorphology achievable with two SM donors benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b]dithiophene-pyrido[3,4-b]-pyrazine BDT(PPTh2)(2), namely SM1 and SM2, differing by their side-chains, are examined as a function of solution additive composition. The results show that the additive 1,8-diiodooctane acts as a plasticizer in the blends, increases domain size, and promotes ordering/crystallinity. Surprisingly, the system with high domain purity (SM1) exhibits both poor exciton harvesting and severe charge trapping, alleviated only slightly with increased crystallinity. In contrast, the system consisting of mixed domains and lower crystallinity (SM2) shows both excellent exciton harvesting and low charge recombination losses. Importantly, the onset of large, pure crystallites in the latter (SM2) system reduces efficiency, pointing to possible differences in the ideal morphologies for SM-based BHJ solar cells compared with polymer-fullerene devices. In polymer-based systems, tie chains between pure polymer crystals establish a continuous charge transport network, whereas SM-based active layers may in some cases require mixed domains that enable both aggregation and charge percolation to the electrodes.
KW  - charge transport
KW  - domain purity
KW  - microscopy
KW  - mixed domains
KW  - organic solar cells
KW  - photovoltaic devices
KW  - resonant X-ray scattering
KW  - small molecules
KW  - transient spectroscopy
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201702941
SN  - 1614-6832
SN  - 1614-6840
VL  - 8
IS  - 19
PB  - Wiley-VCH
CY  - Weinheim
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Anton, Arthur Markus
A1  - Steyrleuthner, Robert
A1  - Kossack, Wilhelm
A1  - Neher, Dieter
A1  - Kremer, Friedrich
T1  - Infrared Transition Moment Orientational Analysis on the Structural Organization of the Distinct Molecular Subunits in Thin Layers of a High Mobility n-Type Copolymer
JF  - Journal of the American Chemical Society
N2  - The IR-based method of infrared transition moment orientational analysis (IR-TMOA) is employed to unravel molecular order in thin layers of the semiconducting polymer poly[N,N'-bis(2-octyldodecyl),-1,4,5,8-naphthalene-diimide-2,6-diyl]-alt-5-5'-(2,2'-bithiophene) (P(NDI2OD-T2)). Structure-specific vibrational bands are analyzed in dependence On polarization and inclination of the sample-With respect to the optical axis. By that the molecular Order parameter tensor for the respective molecular moieties with regard to the sample: coordinate system is deduced. Making use of the specificity of the IR spectral range, we are able to determine separately the orientation of atomistic planes defined through the naphthalenediimide (NDI) and bithiophene (T2) units relative to the substrate, and hence, relative to each other. A pronounced solvent effect is observed While chlorobenzene causes the T2 planes to align preferentially parallel to the substrate at an angle of 29 degrees, using a 1:1 chloronaphthalene:xylene mixture results in a reorientation of the T2 units from a face on into an edge on arrangement. In contrast the NDI unit remains unaffected. Additionally, for both solvents evidence is observed for the aggregation of chains in accord With recently published results obtained by UV-vis absorption spectroscopy.
Y1  - 2015
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5b01755
SN  - 0002-7863
VL  - 137
IS  - 18
SP  - 6034
EP  - 6043
PB  - American Chemical Society
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Asawapirom, Udom
A1  - Bulut, F.
A1  - Farrell, Tony
A1  - Gadermaier, C.
A1  - Gamerith, S.
A1  - Güntner, Roland
A1  - Kietzke, Thomas
A1  - Patil, S.
A1  - Piok, T.
A1  - Montenegro, Rivelino V. D.
A1  - Stiller, Burkhard
A1  - Tiersch, Brigitte
A1  - Landfester, Katharina
A1  - List, E. J. W.
A1  - Neher, Dieter
A1  - Torres, C. S.
A1  - Scherf, Ullrich
T1  - Materials for polymer electronics applications semiconducting polymer thin films and nanoparticles
N2  - The paper presents two different approaches to nanostructured semiconducting polymer materials: (i) the generation of aqueous semiconducting polymer dispersions (semiconducting polymer nanospheres SPNs) and their processing into dense films and layers, and (ii) the synthesis of novel semiconducting polyfluorene-block-polyaniline (PF-b-PANI) block copolymers composed of conjugated blocks of different redox potentials which form nanosized morphologies in the solid state
Y1  - 2004
SN  - 1022-1360
ER  -