TY - JOUR A1 - Zhong, Yufei A1 - Causa, Martina A1 - Moore, Gareth John A1 - Krauspe, Philipp A1 - Xiao, Bo A1 - Günther, Florian A1 - Kublitski, Jonas A1 - BarOr, Eyal A1 - Zhou, Erjun A1 - Banerji, Natalie T1 - Sub-picosecond charge-transfer at near-zero driving force in polymer:non-fullerene acceptor blends and bilayers JF - Nature Communications N2 - Organic photovoltaics based on non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) show record efficiency of 16 to 17% and increased photovoltage owing to the low driving force for interfacial charge-transfer. However, the low driving force potentially slows down charge generation, leading to a tradeoff between voltage and current. Here, we disentangle the intrinsic charge-transfer rates from morphology-dependent exciton diffusion for a series of polymer:NFA systems. Moreover, we establish the influence of the interfacial energetics on the electron and hole transfer rates separately. We demonstrate that charge-transfer timescales remain at a few hundred femtoseconds even at near-zero driving force, which is consistent with the rates predicted by Marcus theory in the normal region, at moderate electronic coupling and at low re-organization energy. Thus, in the design of highly efficient devices, the energy offset at the donor:acceptor interface can be minimized without jeopardizing the charge-transfer rate and without concerns about a current-voltage tradeoff. KW - organic solar cell KW - electron-transfer KW - Donor-Acceptor (DA) interface KW - transfer dynamics KW - donor KW - seperation KW - efficiency KW - impact KW - energy KW - photovoltaics Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14549-w SN - 2041-1723 VL - 11 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Nature Publishing Group UK CY - London ER - TY - GEN A1 - Zhong, Yufei A1 - Causa, Martina A1 - Moore, Gareth John A1 - Krauspe, Philipp A1 - Xiao, Bo A1 - Günther, Florian A1 - Kublitski, Jonas A1 - BarOr, Eyal A1 - Zhou, Erjun A1 - Banerji, Natalie T1 - Sub-picosecond charge-transfer at near-zero driving force in polymer:non-fullerene acceptor blends and bilayers T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Organic photovoltaics based on non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) show record efficiency of 16 to 17% and increased photovoltage owing to the low driving force for interfacial charge-transfer. However, the low driving force potentially slows down charge generation, leading to a tradeoff between voltage and current. Here, we disentangle the intrinsic charge-transfer rates from morphology-dependent exciton diffusion for a series of polymer:NFA systems. Moreover, we establish the influence of the interfacial energetics on the electron and hole transfer rates separately. We demonstrate that charge-transfer timescales remain at a few hundred femtoseconds even at near-zero driving force, which is consistent with the rates predicted by Marcus theory in the normal region, at moderate electronic coupling and at low re-organization energy. Thus, in the design of highly efficient devices, the energy offset at the donor:acceptor interface can be minimized without jeopardizing the charge-transfer rate and without concerns about a current-voltage tradeoff. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1422 KW - organic solar cell KW - electron-transfer KW - Donor-Acceptor (DA) interface KW - transfer dynamics KW - donor KW - seperation KW - efficiency KW - impact KW - energy KW - photovoltaics Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-511936 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 1 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zu, Fengshuo A1 - Schultz, Thorsten A1 - Wolff, Christian Michael A1 - Shin, Dongguen A1 - Frohloff, Lennart A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Amsalem, Patrick A1 - Koch, Norbert T1 - Position-locking of volatile reaction products by atmosphere and capping layers slows down photodecomposition of methylammonium lead triiodide perovskite JF - RSC Advances N2 - The remarkable progress of metal halide perovskites in photovoltaics has led to the power conversion efficiency approaching 26%. However, practical applications of perovskite-based solar cells are challenged by the stability issues, of which the most critical one is photo-induced degradation. Bare CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite films are known to decompose rapidly, with methylammonium and iodine as volatile species and residual solid PbI2 and metallic Pb, under vacuum under white light illumination, on the timescale of minutes. We find, in agreement with previous work, that the degradation is non-uniform and proceeds predominantly from the surface, and that illumination under N-2 and ambient air (relative humidity 20%) does not induce substantial degradation even after several hours. Yet, in all cases the release of iodine from the perovskite surface is directly identified by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. This goes in hand with a loss of organic cations and the formation of metallic Pb. When CH3NH3PbI3 films are covered with a few nm thick organic capping layer, either charge selective or non-selective, the rapid photodecomposition process under ultrahigh vacuum is reduced by more than one order of magnitude, and becomes similar in timescale to that under N-2 or air. We conclude that the light-induced decomposition reaction of CH3NH3PbI3, leading to volatile methylammonium and iodine, is largely reversible as long as these products are restrained from leaving the surface. This is readily achieved by ambient atmospheric pressure, as well as a thin organic capping layer even under ultrahigh vacuum. In addition to explaining the impact of gas pressure on the stability of this perovskite, our results indicate that covalently "locking" the position of perovskite components at the surface or an interface should enhance the overall photostability. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/d0ra03572f SN - 2046-2069 VL - 10 IS - 30 SP - 17534 EP - 17542 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER -