TY - THES A1 - Albrecht, Steve T1 - Generation, recombination and extraction of charges in polymer T1 - Generierung, Rekombination und Extraktion von Ladungen in Polymer BT - fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells BT - Fulleren Mischsolarzellen N2 - A dramatic efficiency improvement of bulk heterojunction solar cells based on electron-donating conjugated polymers in combination with soluble fullerene derivatives has been achieved over the past years. Certified and reported power conversion efficiencies now reach over 9% for single junctions and exceed the 10% benchmark for tandem solar cells. This trend brightens the vision of organic photovoltaics becoming competitive with inorganic solar cells including the realization of low-cost and large-area organic photovoltaics. For the best performing organic materials systems, the yield of charge generation can be very efficient. However, a detailed understanding of the free charge carrier generation mechanisms at the donor acceptor interface and the energy loss associated with it needs to be established. Moreover, organic solar cells are limited by the competition between charge extraction and free charge recombination, accounting for further efficiency losses. A conclusive picture and the development of precise methodologies for investigating the fundamental processes in organic solar cells are crucial for future material design, efficiency optimization, and the implementation of organic solar cells into commercial products. In order to advance the development of organic photovoltaics, my thesis focuses on the comprehensive understanding of charge generation, recombination and extraction in organic bulk heterojunction solar cells summarized in 6 chapters on the cumulative basis of 7 individual publications. The general motivation guiding this work was the realization of an efficient hybrid inorganic/organic tandem solar cell with sub-cells made from amorphous hydrogenated silicon and organic bulk heterojunctions. To realize this project aim, the focus was directed to the low band-gap copolymer PCPDTBT and its derivatives, resulting in the examination of the charge carrier dynamics in PCPDTBT:PC70BM blends in relation to by the blend morphology. The phase separation in this blend can be controlled by the processing additive diiodooctane, enhancing domain purity and size. The quantitative investigation of the free charge formation was realized by utilizing and improving the time delayed collection field technique. Interestingly, a pronounced field dependence of the free carrier generation for all blends is found, with the field dependence being stronger without the additive. Also, the bimolecular recombination coefficient for both blends is rather high and increases with decreasing internal field which we suggest to be caused by a negative field dependence of mobility. The additive speeds up charge extraction which is rationalized by the threefold increase in mobility. By fluorine attachment within the electron deficient subunit of PCPDTBT, a new polymer F-PCPDTBT is designed. This new material is characterized by a stronger tendency to aggregate as compared to non-fluorinated PCPDTBT. Our measurements show that for F-PCPDTBT:PCBM blends the charge carrier generation becomes more efficient and the field-dependence of free charge carrier generation is weakened. The stronger tendency to aggregate induced by the fluorination also leads to increased polymer rich domains, accompanied in a threefold reduction in the non-geminate recombination coefficient at conditions of open circuit. The size of the polymer domains is nicely correlated to the field-dependence of charge generation and the Langevin reduction factor, which highlights the importance of the domain size and domain purity for efficient charge carrier generation. In total, fluorination of PCPDTBT causes the PCE to increase from 3.6 to 6.1% due to enhanced fill factor, short circuit current and open circuit voltage. Further optimization of the blend ratio, active layer thickness, and polymer molecular weight resulted in 6.6% efficiency for F-PCPDTBT:PC70BM solar cells. Interestingly, the double fluorinated version 2F-PCPDTBT exhibited poorer FF despite a further reduction of geminate and non-geminate recombination losses. To further analyze this finding, a new technique is developed that measures the effective extraction mobility under charge carrier densities and electrical fields comparable to solar cell operation conditions. This method involves the bias enhanced charge extraction technique. With the knowledge of the carrier density under different electrical field and illumination conditions, a conclusive picture of the changes in charge carrier dynamics leading to differences in the fill factor upon fluorination of PCPDTBT is attained. The more efficient charge generation and reduced recombination with fluorination is counterbalanced by a decreased extraction mobility. Thus, the highest fill factor of 60% and efficiency of 6.6% is reached for F-PCPDTBT blends, while 2F-PCPDTBT blends have only moderate fill factors of 54% caused by the lower effective extraction mobility, limiting the efficiency to 6.5%. To understand the details of the charge generation mechanism and the related losses, we evaluated the yield and field-dependence of free charge generation using time delayed collection field in combination with sensitive measurements of the external quantum efficiency and absorption coefficients for a variety of blends. Importantly, both the yield and field-dependence of free charge generation is found to be unaffected by excitation energy, including direct charge transfer excitation below the optical band gap. To access the non-detectable absorption at energies of the relaxed charge transfer emission, the absorption was reconstructed from the CT emission, induced via the recombination of thermalized charges in electroluminescence. For a variety of blends, the quantum yield at energies of charge transfer emission was identical to excitations with energies well above the optical band-gap. Thus, the generation proceeds via the split-up of the thermalized charge transfer states in working solar cells. Further measurements were conducted on blends with fine-tuned energy levels and similar blend morphologies by using different fullerene derivatives. A direct correlation between the efficiency of free carrier generation and the energy difference of the relaxed charge transfer state relative to the energy of the charge separated state is found. These findings open up new guidelines for future material design as new high efficiency materials require a minimum energetic offset between charge transfer and the charge separated state while keeping the HOMO level (and LUMO level) difference between donor and acceptor as small as possible. N2 - Die Effizienz von organischen Mischsolarzellen ist in den letzten Jahren durch die Entwicklung neuer halbleitender Materialen beträchtlich gestiegen. Die besten organischen Mischsolarzellen zeigen heute sehr effiziente Ladungsgeneration. Dennoch ist die genaue Funktionsweise der fundamentalen Ladungsgenerationsschritte nicht bis ins Detail verstanden. Zur weiteren Steigerung der Wirkungsgrade und für die kommerzielle Nutzung organischer Mischsolarzellen, sind ein übergreifendes Verständnis der Funktionsweise und die Entwicklung neuer Messmethoden unumgänglich. Die vorliegende Arbeit ist auf diese Fragestellung fokussiert: die Arbeit soll helfen, fundierte Kenntnisse der Ladungsträgererzeugung, der Rekombination und der Extraktion freier Ladungsträger in organischen Mischsolarzellen zu erlangen. Zuerst wurde der Fokus auf Mischsolarzellen mit dem Polymer PCPDTBT gelegt. Dieses Polymer durchmischt stark mit dem Fulleren-Derivat PCBM. Durch Verwendung eines Lösungsmitteladditives kann die Phasenentmischung und damit der Wirkungsgrad deutlich gesteigert werden. Die Generations- und Rekombinationsprozesse wurden mittels zeitverzögerter Sammelfeld-Methode untersucht. Dabei wurde zum ersten Mal eine signifikante Feldabhängigkeit der Ladungsträger-erzeugung entdeckt. Interessanterweise korreliert diese Feldabhängigkeit mit der Domänengröße also dem Grad der Entmischung. In größeren und reineren Polymerphasen ist die Feldabhängigkeit kleiner und die Extraktion verbessert, was zum höheren Wirkungsgrad führt. In einem weiteren Schritt wurde untersucht, wie sich die Fluorinierung des Polymers PCPDTBT auf das Bauteilverhalten auswirkt. Durch Fluorinierung des Polymer-Rückgrats von PCPDTBT wurden zum einen die Energieniveaus abgesenkt, ohne dass sich das Absorptionsverhalten geändert hat. Zum anderen wurde die Phasenentmischung beeinflusst. Mit Fluorinierung entstehen größere, reinere und kristallinere Polymerphasen. Dadurch wird die Generation der Ladungsträger effizienter und die Rekombination stärker unterdrückt. Eindeutige Korrelationen zwischen Phasengröße und Generationseffizienz konnten hierbei gefunden werden. Insgesamt steigt die Bauteileffizienz bei Verwendung von fluoriniertem PCPDTBT von 3.6 auf 6.1% bei gleicher Prozessierung. Durch weitere Optimierung konnte die Effizienz auf 6.6% für fluoriniertes PCPDTBT gesteigert werden. Eine di-Fluorinierung von PCPDTBT limitiert die Bauteileffizienz, speziell den Füll Faktor, trotz der Entstehung noch reinerer Polymerphasen. Eine genauere Analyse der Extraktionseffizienz mittels der genauen Bestimmung der Gleichgewichts-Ladungsträgerdichte für verschiedenen Beleuchtungs- und Feldsituationen zeigte, dass die Fluorinierung die Effizienz der Extraktion deutlich absenkt und dadurch bei di-Fluorinierung die Rekombinationsverluste im Bauteil trotz verlangsamter Rekombination ansteigen. Um weitere fundierte Kenntnisse der Ladungsgeneration zu gewinnen, wurde die Ladungsgeneration für verschiedene Gemische mit veränderten Energieniveaus in Abhängigkeit der Anregungsenergie untersucht. Dabei wurde die wichtige Kenntnis erlangt, dass die Photonenenergie, unabhängig von der Lage der Energieniveaus, keinen Einfluss auf die Effizienz der Generation hat und somit die Bildung freier Ladungsträger aus relaxierten Transferzuständen erfolgt. Dadurch ergeben sich neue Leitlinien für zukünftige Materialeigenschaften mit optimierten Wirkungsgraden. KW - organic solar cells KW - bulk heterojunction KW - charge carrier dynamics KW - charge generation KW - non geminate recombination KW - Generierung von Ladungsträgern KW - nicht geminale Rekombination KW - Extraktion KW - Polymer KW - Fulleren Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-72285 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 - Shoaee, Safa A1 - Stolterfoht, Martin A1 - Neher, Dieter T1 - The Role of Mobility on Charge Generation, Recombination, and Extraction in Polymer-Based Solar Cells JF - dvanced energy materials N2 - Organic semiconductors are of great interest for a broad range of optoelectronic applications due to their solution processability, chemical tunability, highly scalable fabrication, and mechanical flexibility. In contrast to traditional inorganic semiconductors, organic semiconductors are intrinsically disordered systems and therefore exhibit much lower charge carrier mobilities-the Achilles heel of organic photovoltaic cells. In this progress review, the authors discuss recent important developments on the impact of charge carrier mobility on the charge transfer state dissociation, and the interplay of free charge extraction and recombination. By comparing the mobilities on different timescales obtained by different techniques, the authors highlight the dispersive nature of these materials and how this reflects on the key processes defining the efficiency of organic photovoltaics. KW - charge generation KW - charge recombination KW - extraction KW - mobility KW - organic solar cells KW - polymer:fullerene bulk heterojunction Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201703355 SN - 1614-6832 SN - 1614-6840 VL - 8 IS - 28 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - GEN A1 - Shoaee, Safa A1 - Armin, Ardalan A1 - Stolterfoht, Martin A1 - Hosseini, Seyed Mehrdad A1 - Kurpiers, Jona A1 - Neher, Dieter T1 - Decoding charge recombination through charge generation in organic solar cells T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The in‐depth understanding of charge carrier photogeneration and recombination mechanisms in organic solar cells is still an ongoing effort. In donor:acceptor (bulk) heterojunction organic solar cells, charge photogeneration and recombination are inter‐related via the kinetics of charge transfer states—being singlet or triplet states. Although high‐charge‐photogeneration quantum yields are achieved in many donor:acceptor systems, only very few systems show significantly reduced bimolecular recombination relative to the rate of free carrier encounters, in low‐mobility systems. This is a serious limitation for the industrialization of organic solar cells, in particular when aiming at thick active layers. Herein, a meta‐analysis of the device performance of numerous bulk heterojunction organic solar cells is presented for which field‐dependent photogeneration, charge carrier mobility, and fill factor are determined. Herein, a “spin‐related factor” that is dependent on the ratio of back electron transfer of the triplet charge transfer (CT) states to the decay rate of the singlet CT states is introduced. It is shown that this factor links the recombination reduction factor to charge‐generation efficiency. As a consequence, it is only in the systems with very efficient charge generation and very fast CT dissociation that free carrier recombination is strongly suppressed, regardless of the spin‐related factor. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 773 KW - charge generation KW - charge transfers KW - non-Langevin recombination KW - spin-related factors Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-437512 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 773 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Shoaee, Safa A1 - Armin, Ardalan A1 - Stolterfoht, Martin A1 - Hosseini, Seyed Mehrdad A1 - Kurpiers, Jona A1 - Neher, Dieter T1 - Decoding Charge Recombination through Charge Generation in Organic Solar Cells JF - Solar RRL N2 - The in-depth understanding of charge carrier photogeneration and recombination mechanisms in organic solar cells is still an ongoing effort. In donor:acceptor (bulk) heterojunction organic solar cells, charge photogeneration and recombination are inter-related via the kinetics of charge transfer states-being singlet or triplet states. Although high-charge-photogeneration quantum yields are achieved in many donor:acceptor systems, only very few systems show significantly reduced bimolecular recombination relative to the rate of free carrier encounters, in low-mobility systems. This is a serious limitation for the industrialization of organic solar cells, in particular when aiming at thick active layers. Herein, a meta-analysis of the device performance of numerous bulk heterojunction organic solar cells is presented for which field-dependent photogeneration, charge carrier mobility, and fill factor are determined. Herein, a "spin-related factor" that is dependent on the ratio of back electron transfer of the triplet charge transfer (CT) states to the decay rate of the singlet CT states is introduced. It is shown that this factor links the recombination reduction factor to charge-generation efficiency. As a consequence, it is only in the systems with very efficient charge generation and very fast CT dissociation that free carrier recombination is strongly suppressed, regardless of the spin-related factor. KW - charge generation KW - charge transfers KW - non-Langevin recombination KW - spin-related factors Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/solr.201900184 SN - 2367-198X VL - 3 IS - 11 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zeiske, Stefan A1 - Sandberg, Oskar J. A1 - Kurpiers, Jona A1 - Shoaee, Safa A1 - Meredith, Paul A1 - Armin, Ardalan T1 - Probing charge generation efficiency in thin-film solar cells by integral-mode transient charge extraction JF - ACS photonics N2 - The photogeneration of free charges in light-harvesting devices is a multistep process, which can be challenging to probe due to the complexity of contributing energetic states and the competitive character of different driving mechanisms. In this contribution, we advance a technique, integral-mode transient charge extraction (ITCE), to probe these processes in thin-film solar cells. ITCE combines capacitance measurements with the integral-mode time-of-flight method in the low intensity regime of sandwich-type thin-film devices and allows for the sensitive determination of photogenerated charge-carrier densities. We verify the theoretical framework of our method by drift-diffusion simulations and demonstrate the applicability of ITCE to organic and perovskite semiconductor-based thin-film solar cells. Furthermore, we examine the field dependence of charge generation efficiency and find our ITCE results to be in excellent agreement with those obtained via time-delayed collection field measurements conducted on the same devices. KW - charge generation KW - thin-film solar cells KW - organic semiconductors; KW - perovskite semiconductors KW - external generation efficiency Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1021/acsphotonics.1c01532 SN - 2330-4022 VL - 9 IS - 4 SP - 1188 EP - 1195 PB - American Chemical Society CY - Washington ER - TY - THES A1 - Sun, Bowen T1 - Energy losses in low-offset organic solar cells T1 - Energieverluste in organischen Solarzellen mit geringer Versetzung BT - from fundamental understanding to characterization considerations BT - von grundlegendem Verständnis bis zu Charakterisierungsüberlegungen N2 - Organic solar cells (OSCs) represent a new generation of solar cells with a range of captivating attributes including low-cost, light-weight, aesthetically pleasing appearance, and flexibility. Different from traditional silicon solar cells, the photon-electron conversion in OSCs is usually accomplished in an active layer formed by blending two kinds of organic molecules (donor and acceptor) with different energy levels together. The first part of this thesis focuses on a better understanding of the role of the energetic offset and each recombination channel on the performance of these low-offset OSCs. By combining advanced experimental techniques with optical and electrical simulation, the energetic offsets between CT and excitons, several important insights were achieved: 1. The short circuit current density and fill-factor of low-offset systems are largely determined by field-dependent charge generation in such low-offset OSCs. Interestingly, it is strongly evident that such field-dependent charge generation originates from a field-dependent exciton dissociation yield. 2. The reduced energetic offset was found to be accompanied by strongly enhanced bimolecular recombination coefficient, which cannot be explained solely by exciton repopulation from CT states. This implies the existence of another dark decay channel apart from CT. The second focus of the thesis was on the technical perspective. In this thesis, the influence of optical artifacts in differential absorption spectroscopy upon the change of sample configuration and active layer thickness was studied. It is exemplified and discussed thoroughly and systematically in terms of optical simulations and experiments, how optical artifacts originated from non-uniform carrier profile and interference can manipulate not only the measured spectra, but also the decay dynamics in various measurement conditions. In the end of this study, a generalized methodology based on an inverse optical transfer matrix formalism was provided to correct the spectra and decay dynamics manipulated by optical artifacts. Overall, this thesis paves the way for a deeper understanding of the keys toward higher PCEs in low-offset OSC devices, from the perspectives of both device physics and characterization techniques. N2 - Organische Solarzellen (OSZ) repräsentieren eine neue Generation von Solarzellen mit einer Vielzahl faszinierender Eigenschaften, darunter geringe Kosten, geringes Gewicht, ästhetisch ansprechendes Erscheinungsbild und Flexibilität. Im Gegensatz zu traditionellen Silizium-Solarzellen erfolgt die Umwandlung von Photonen in Elektronen in OSZ in der Regel in einer aktiven Schicht, die durch das Mischen von zwei Arten organischer Moleküle (Donator und Akzeptor) mit unterschiedlichen Energieniveaus gebildet wird. Der erste Teil dieser Arbeit konzentriert sich auf ein besseres Verständnis der Rolle des energetischen Versatzes und jedes Rekombinationskanals auf die Leistung dieser OSCs mit geringem Versatz. Durch die Kombination fortschrittlicher experimenteller Techniken mit optischer und elektrischer Simulation wurden wichtige Erkenntnisse über die energetischen Versätze zwischen CT und Exzitonen erlangt: 1. Die Stromdichte im Kurzschluss und der Füllfaktor von Systemen mit geringem Versatz werden weitgehend durch feldabhängige Ladungsgenerierung in solchen OSZ mit geringem Versatz bestimmt. Interessanterweise ist deutlich erkennbar, dass eine feldabhängige Ladungsgenerierung aus einer feldabhängigen Exzitonen-Dissociationsausbeute resultiert. 2. Der reduzierte energetische Versatz geht mit einem stark erhöhten bimolekularen Rekombinationskoeffizienten einher, der nicht allein durch die Wiederbevölkerung von Exzitonen aus CT-Zuständen erklärt werden kann. Dies deutet auf die Existenz eines anderen dunklen Zerfallsweges neben CT hin. Der zweite Schwerpunkt der Arbeit lag auf der technischen Perspektive. In dieser Arbeit wurde der Einfluss von optischen Artefakten in der differentiellen Absorptionsspektroskopie auf die Änderung der Probekonfiguration und der aktiven Schichtdicke untersucht. Es wird anhand optischer Simulationen und Experimente ausführlich und systematisch dargelegt und diskutiert, wie optische Artefakte, die durch ein nicht gleichmäßiges Ladungsprofil und Interferenzen verursacht werden, nicht nur die gemessenen Spektren, sondern auch die Zerfalldynamik in verschiedenen Messbedingungen manipulieren können. Am Ende dieser Studie wurde eine generalisierte Methodik auf Basis eines inversen optischen Übertragungsmatrixformalismus bereitgestellt, um die durch optische Artefakte manipulierten Spektren und Zerfalldynamiken zu korrigieren. Insgesamt ebnet diese Arbeit den Weg für ein tieferes Verständnis der Schlüsselaspekte für höhere Wirkungsgrade in OSZ mit geringem Versatz, sowohl aus Sicht der Gerätephysik als auch der Charakterisierungstechniken. KW - organic solar cell KW - organische Solarzelle KW - non-fullerene acceptors KW - Nicht-Fulleren-Akzeptoren KW - charge generation KW - Ladungsgenerierung KW - exciton dissociation KW - Exziton-Dissoziation KW - cavity effects KW - Hohlraumeffekte Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-621430 ER -