TY - JOUR A1 - Nikolis, Vasileios C. A1 - Mischok, Andreas A1 - Siegmund, Bernhard A1 - Kublitski, Jonas A1 - Jia, Xiangkun A1 - Benduhn, Johannes A1 - Hörmann, Ulrich A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Gather, Malte C. A1 - Spoltore, Donato A1 - Vandewal, Koen T1 - Strong light-matter coupling for reduced photon energy losses in organic photovoltaics JF - Nature Communications N2 - Strong light-matter coupling can re-arrange the exciton energies in organic semiconductors. Here, we exploit strong coupling by embedding a fullerene-free organic solar cell (OSC) photo-active layer into an optical microcavity, leading to the formation of polariton peaks and a red-shift of the optical gap. At the same time, the open-circuit voltage of the device remains unaffected. This leads to reduced photon energy losses for the low-energy polaritons and a steepening of the absorption edge. While strong coupling reduces the optical gap, the energy of the charge-transfer state is not affected for large driving force donor-acceptor systems. Interestingly, this implies that strong coupling can be exploited in OSCs to reduce the driving force for electron transfer, without chemical or microstructural modifications of the photoactive layer. Our work demonstrates that the processes determining voltage losses in OSCs can now be tuned, and reduced to unprecedented values, simply by manipulating the device architecture. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11717-5 SN - 2041-1723 VL - 10 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Collado-Fregoso, Elisa A1 - Hood, Samantha N. A1 - Shoaee, Safa A1 - Schröder, Bob C. A1 - McCulloch, Iain A1 - Kassal, Ivan A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Durrant, James R. T1 - Intercalated vs Nonintercalated Morphologies in Donor-Acceptor Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells: PBTTT:Fullerene Charge Generation and Recombination Revisited JF - The journal of physical chemistry letters N2 - In this Letter, we study the role of the donor:acceptor interface nanostructure upon charge separation and recombination in organic photovoltaic devices and blend films, using mixtures of PBTTT and two different fullerene derivatives (PC70BM and ICTA) as models for intercalated and nonintercalated morphologies, respectively. Thermodynamic simulations show that while the completely intercalated system exhibits a large free-energy barrier for charge separation, this barrier is significantly lower in the nonintercalated system and almost vanishes when energetic disorder is included in the model. Despite these differences, both femtosecond-resolved transient absorption spectroscopy (TAS) and time-delayed collection field (TDCF) exhibit extensive first-order losses in both systems, suggesting that geminate pairs are the primary product of photoexcitation. In contrast, the system that comprises a combination of fully intercalated polymer:fullerene areas and fullerene-aggregated domains (1:4 PBTTT:PC70BM) is the only one that shows slow, second-order recombination of free charges, resulting in devices with an overall higher short-circuit current and fill factor. This study therefore provides a novel consideration of the role of the interfacial nanostructure and the nature of bound charges and their impact upon charge generation and recombination. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.7b01571 SN - 1948-7185 VL - 8 SP - 4061 EP - 4068 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Deschler, Felix A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Schmidt-Mende, Lukas T1 - Perovskite semiconductors for next generation optoelectronic applications JF - APL Materials Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5119744 SN - 2166-532X VL - 7 IS - 8 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville 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 - Gorenflot, Julien A1 - Paulke, Andreas A1 - Piersimoni, Fortunato A1 - Wolf, Jannic A1 - Kan, Zhipeng A1 - Cruciani, Federico A1 - El Labban, Abdulrahman A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Beaujuge, Pierre M. A1 - Laquai, Frederic T1 - From recombination dynamics to device performance BT - quantifying the efficiency of exciton dissociation, charge separation, and extraction in bulk heterojunction solar cells with Fluorine-Substituted polymer donors JF - dvanced energy materials N2 - An original set of experimental and modeling tools is used to quantify the yield of each of the physical processes leading to photocurrent generation in organic bulk heterojunction solar cells, enabling evaluation of materials and processing condition beyond the trivial comparison of device performances. Transient absorption spectroscopy, “the” technique to monitor all intermediate states over the entire relevant timescale, is combined with time-delayed collection field experiments, transfer matrix simulations, spectral deconvolution, and parametrization of the charge carrier recombination by a two-pool model, allowing quantification of densities of excitons and charges and extrapolation of their kinetics to device-relevant conditions. Photon absorption, charge transfer, charge separation, and charge extraction are all quantified for two recently developed wide-bandgap donor polymers: poly(4,8-bis((2-ethylhexyl)oxy)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-3,4-difluorothiophene) (PBDT[2F]T) and its nonfluorinated counterpart poly(4,8-bis((2-ethylhexyl)oxy)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-3,4-thiophene) (PBDT[2H]T) combined with PC71BM in bulk heterojunctions. The product of these yields is shown to agree well with the devices' external quantum efficiency. This methodology elucidates in the specific case studied here the origin of improved photocurrents obtained when using PBDT[2F]T instead of PBDT[2H]T as well as upon using solvent additives. Furthermore, a higher charge transfer (CT)-state energy is shown to lead to significantly lower energy losses (resulting in higher VOC) during charge generation compared to P3HT:PCBM. KW - bulk heterojunction KW - charge generation yield KW - charge recombination yield KW - polymer solar cells KW - transient absorption spectroscopy Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701678 SN - 1614-6832 SN - 1614-6840 VL - 8 IS - 4 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - GEN A1 - Liu, W. A1 - Tkachov, R. A1 - Komber, H. A1 - Senkovskyy, V. A1 - Schubert, M. A1 - Wei, Z. A1 - Facchetti, A. A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Kiriy, A. T1 - Chain-growth polycondensation of perylene diimide-based copolymers BT - a new route to regio-regular perylene diimide-based acceptors for all-polymer solar cells and n-type transistors N2 - Herein, we report the chain-growth tin-free room temperature polymerization method to synthesize n-type perylene diimide-dithiophene-based conjugated polymers (PPDIT2s) suitable for solar cell and transistor applications. The palladium/electron-rich tri-tert-butylphosphine catalyst is effective to enable the chain-growth polymerization of anion-radical monomer Br-TPDIT-Br/Zn to PPDIT2 with a molecular weight up to Mw ≈ 50 kg mol−1 and moderate polydispersity. This is the second example of the polymerization of unusual anion-radical aromatic complexes formed in a reaction of active Zn and electron-deficient diimide-based aryl halides. As such, the discovered polymerization method is not a specific reactivity feature of the naphthalene-diimide derivatives but is rather a general polymerization tool. This is an important finding, given the significantly higher maximum external quantum efficiency that can be reached with PDI-based copolymers (32–45%) in all-polymer solar cells compared to NDI-based materials (15–30%). Our studies revealed that PPDIT2 synthesized by the new method and the previously published polymer prepared by step-growth Stille polycondensation show similar electron mobility and all-polymer solar cell performance. At the same time, the polymerization reported herein has several technological advantages as it proceeds relatively fast at room temperature and does not involve toxic tin-based compounds. Because several chain-growth polymerization reactions are well-suited for the preparation of well-defined multi-functional polymer architectures, the next target is to explore the utility of the discovered polymerization in the synthesis of end-functionalized polymers and block copolymers. Such materials would be helpful to improve the nanoscale morphology of polymer blends in all-polymer solar cells. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 273 Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-98724 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Kniepert, Juliane A1 - Elimelech, Arik A1 - Koster, L. Jan Anton T1 - A New Figure of Merit for Organic Solar Cells with Transport-limited Photocurrents JF - Scientific reports N2 - Compared to their inorganic counterparts, organic semiconductors suffer from relatively low charge carrier mobilities. Therefore, expressions derived for inorganic solar cells to correlate characteristic performance parameters to material properties are prone to fail when applied to organic devices. This is especially true for the classical Shockley-equation commonly used to describe current-voltage (JV)-curves, as it assumes a high electrical conductivity of the charge transporting material. Here, an analytical expression for the JV-curves of organic solar cells is derived based on a previously published analytical model. This expression, bearing a similar functional dependence as the Shockley-equation, delivers a new figure of merit α to express the balance between free charge recombination and extraction in low mobility photoactive materials. This figure of merit is shown to determine critical device parameters such as the apparent series resistance and the fill factor. KW - Electronic and spintronic devices KW - Semiconductors Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/srep24861 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 6 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - London ER - TY - GEN A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Kniepert, Juliane A1 - Elimelech, Arik A1 - Koster, L. Jan Anton T1 - A New Figure of Merit for Organic Solar Cells with Transport-limited Photocurrents N2 - Compared to their inorganic counterparts, organic semiconductors suffer from relatively low charge carrier mobilities. Therefore, expressions derived for inorganic solar cells to correlate characteristic performance parameters to material properties are prone to fail when applied to organic devices. This is especially true for the classical Shockley-equation commonly used to describe current-voltage (JV)-curves, as it assumes a high electrical conductivity of the charge transporting material. Here, an analytical expression for the JV-curves of organic solar cells is derived based on a previously published analytical model. This expression, bearing a similar functional dependence as the Shockley-equation, delivers a new figure of merit α to express the balance between free charge recombination and extraction in low mobility photoactive materials. This figure of merit is shown to determine critical device parameters such as the apparent series resistance and the fill factor. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 225 KW - Electronic and spintronic devices KW - Semiconductors Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-91414 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Luszczynska, Beata A1 - Dobruchowska, Ewa A1 - Glowacki, Ireneusz A1 - Ulanski, Jacek A1 - Jaiser, Frank A1 - Yang, Xiaohui A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Danel, Andrzej T1 - Poly(N-vinylcarbazole) doped with a pyrazoloquinoline dye : a deep blue light-emitting composite for light- emitting diode applications N2 - We investigated the spectral properties of light-emitting diodes based on a deep blue-emitting pyrazoloquinoline dye doped into a poly(N-vinylcarbazole)-based matrix. Even though the electroluminescence (EL) of the host is redshifted and broadened with respect to the emission of the dye, the EL spectrum becomes fully dominated by the dye emission at concentrations of ca. 2 wt %. This is attributed to a competition of exciplex formation on the matrix and exciton formation on the dye. Y1 - 2006 UR - http://jap.aip.org/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2162268 SN - 0021-8979 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Yang, X. H. A1 - Jaiser, Frank A1 - Klinger, S A1 - Neher, Dieter T1 - Blue polymer electrophosphorescent devices with different electron-transporting oxadiazoles N2 - We report that the performances of blue polymer electrophosphorescent devices are crucially depending on the choice of the electron transporting material incorporated into the emissive layer. Devices with 1,3-bis[(4-tert- butylphenyl)-1,3,4-oxidiazolyl]phenylene (OXD-7) doped at similar to 40 wt% into a poly(vinylcarbazole) matrix exhibited significantly higher efficiencies than those with 2-(4-biphenylyl)-5-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole (PBD), yielding maximum luminous and power efficiency values of 18.2 Cd/A and 8.8 lm/W, respectively. Time resolved photoluminescence measurements revealed a long lifetime phosphorescence component in layers with PBD, which we assign to significant triplet harvesting by this electron-transporting component. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics Y1 - 2006 UR - http://scitation.aip.org/getpdf/servlet/ GetPDFServlet?filetype=pdf&id=APPLAB000088000002021107000001&idtype=cvips&doi=10.1063/1.2162693&prog=normal U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2162693 ER -