TY - JOUR A1 - Turner, Sarah T. A1 - Pingel, Patrick A1 - Steyrleuthner, Robert A1 - Crossland, Edward J. W. A1 - Ludwigs, Sabine A1 - Neher, Dieter T1 - Quantitative analysis of bulk heterojunction films using linear absorption spectroscopy and solar cell performance JF - Advanced functional materials N2 - A fundamental understanding of the relationship between the bulk morphology and device performance is required for the further development of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. Here, non-optimized (chloroform cast) and nearly optimized (solvent-annealed o-dichlorobenzene cast) P3HT:PCBM blend films treated over a range of annealing temperatures are studied via optical and photovoltaic device measurements. Parameters related to the P3HT aggregate morphology in the blend are obtained through a recently established analytical model developed by F. C. Spano for the absorption of weakly interacting H-aggregates. Thermally induced changes are related to the glass transition range of the blend. In the chloroform prepared devices, the improvement in device efficiency upon annealing within the glass transition range can be attributed to the growth of P3HT aggregates, an overall increase in the percentage of chain crystallinity, and a concurrent increase in the hole mobilities. Films treated above the glass transition range show an increase in efficiency and fill factor not only associated with the change in chain crystallinity, but also with a decrease in the energetic disorder. On the other hand, the properties of the P3HT phase in the solvent-annealed o-dichlorobenzene cast blends are almost indistinguishable from those of the corresponding pristine P3HT layer and are only weakly affected by thermal annealing. Apparently, slow drying of the blend allows the P3HT chains to crystallize into large domains with low degrees of intra- and interchain disorder. This morphology appears to be most favorable for the efficient generation and extraction of charges. KW - Organic electronics KW - morphology KW - solar cells KW - mobility KW - absorption spectroscopy Y1 - 2011 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201101583 SN - 1616-301X VL - 21 IS - 24 SP - 4640 EP - 4652 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schubert, Marcel A1 - Dolfen, Daniel A1 - Frisch, Johannes A1 - Roland, Steffen A1 - Steyrleuthner, Robert A1 - Stiller, Burkhard A1 - Chen, Zhihua A1 - Scherf, Ullrich A1 - Koch, Norbert A1 - Facchetti, Antonio A1 - Neher, Dieter T1 - Influence of aggregation on the performance of All-Polymer Solar Cells containing Low-Bandgap Naphthalenediimide Copolymers JF - dvanced energy materials N2 - The authors present efficient all-polymer solar cells comprising two different low-bandgap naphthalenediimide (NDI)-based copolymers as acceptors and regioregular P3HT as the donor. It is shown that these naphthalene copolymers have a strong tendency to preaggregate in specific organic solvents, and that preaggregation can be completely suppressed when using suitable solvents with large and highly polarizable aromatic cores. Organic solar cells prepared from such nonaggregated polymer solutions show dramatically increased power conversion efficiencies of up to 1.4%, which is mainly due to a large increase of the short circuit current. In addition, optimized solar cells show remarkable high fill factors of up to 70%. The analysis of the blend absorbance spectra reveals a surprising anticorrelation between the degree of polymer aggregation in the solid P3HT:NDI copolymer blends and their photovoltaic performance. Scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements reveal important information on the blend morphology. It is shown that films with high degree of aggregation and low photocurrents exhibit large-scale phase-separation into rather pure donor and acceptor domains. It is proposed that, by suppressing the aggregation of NDI copolymers at the early stage of film formation, the intermixing of the donor and acceptor component is improved, thereby allowing efficient harvesting of photogenerated excitons at the donoracceptor heterojunction. KW - aggregation KW - morphology KW - naphthalenediimide KW - organic semiconductors KW - organic photovoltaics Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201100601 SN - 1614-6832 VL - 2 IS - 3 SP - 369 EP - 380 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ran, Niva A. A1 - Love, John A. A1 - Heiber, Michael C. A1 - Jiao, Xuechen A1 - Hughes, Michael P. A1 - Karki, Akchheta A1 - Wang, Ming A1 - Brus, Viktor V. A1 - Wang, Hengbin A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Ade, Harald A1 - Bazan, Guillermo C. A1 - Thuc-Quyen Nguyen, T1 - Charge generation and recombination in an organic solar cell with low energetic offsets JF - dvanced energy materials N2 - Organic bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells require energetic offsets between the donor and acceptor to obtain high short-circuit currents (J(SC)) and fill factors (FF). However, it is necessary to reduce the energetic offsets to achieve high open-circuit voltages (V-OC). Recently, reports have highlighted BHJ blends that are pushing at the accepted limits of energetic offsets necessary for high efficiency. Unfortunately, most of these BHJs have modest FF values. How the energetic offset impacts the solar cell characteristics thus remains poorly understood. Here, a comprehensive characterization of the losses in a polymer:fullerene BHJ blend, PIPCP:phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM), that achieves a high V-OC (0.9 V) with very low energy losses (E-loss = 0.52 eV) from the energy of absorbed photons, a respectable J(SC) (13 mA cm(-2)), but a limited FF (54%) is reported. Despite the low energetic offset, the system does not suffer from field-dependent generation and instead it is characterized by very fast nongeminate recombination and the presence of shallow traps. The charge-carrier losses are attributed to suboptimal morphology due to high miscibility between PIPCP and PC61BM. These results hold promise that given the appropriate morphology, the J(SC), V-OC, and FF can all be improved, even with very low energetic offsets. KW - energetic offset KW - fill factor KW - morphology KW - organic solar cells KW - recombination Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701073 SN - 1614-6832 SN - 1614-6840 VL - 8 IS - 5 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim 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 -