TY - JOUR A1 - Armin, Ardalan A1 - Chen, Zhiming A1 - Jin, Yaocheng A1 - Zhang, Kai A1 - Huang, Fei A1 - Shoaee, Safa T1 - A Shockley-Type polymer BT - Fullerene solar cell JF - Advanced energy materials N2 - Charge extraction rate in solar cells made of blends of electron donating/accepting organic semiconductors is typically slow due to their low charge carrier mobility. This sets a limit on the active layer thickness and has hindered the industrialization of organic solar cells (OSCs). Herein, charge transport and recombination properties of an efficient polymer (NT812):fullerene blend are investigated. This system delivers power conversion efficiency of >9% even when the junction thickness is as large as 800 nm. Experimental results indicate that this material system exhibits exceptionally low bimolecular recombination constant, 800 times smaller than the diffusion-controlled electron and hole encounter rate. Comparing theoretical results based on a recently introduced modified Shockley model for fill factor, and experiments, clarifies that charge collection is nearly ideal in these solar cells even when the thickness is several hundreds of nanometer. This is the first realization of high-efficiency Shockley-type organic solar cells with junction thicknesses suitable for scaling up. KW - charge transport KW - non-Langevin recombination KW - organic solar cells KW - thick junctions Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701450 SN - 1614-6832 SN - 1614-6840 VL - 8 IS - 7 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Yazmaciyan, Aren A1 - Stolterfoht, Martin A1 - Burn, Paul L. A1 - Lin, Qianqian A1 - Meredith, Paul A1 - Armin, Ardalan T1 - Recombination losses above and below the transport percolation threshold in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells JF - Advanced energy materials N2 - Achieving the highest power conversion efficiencies in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells requires a morphology that delivers electron and hole percolation pathways for optimized transport, plus sufficient donor:acceptor contact area for near unity charge transfer state formation. This is a significant structural challenge, particularly in semiconducting polymer:fullerene systems. This balancing act in the model high efficiency PTB7:PC70BM blend is studied by tuning the donor:acceptor ratio, with a view to understanding the recombination loss mechanisms above and below the fullerene transport percolation threshold. The internal quantum efficiency is found to be strongly correlated to the slower carrier mobility in agreement with other recent studies. Furthermore, second-order recombination losses dominate the shape of the current density-voltage curve in efficient blend combinations, where the fullerene phase is percolated. However, below the charge transport percolation threshold, there is an electric-field dependence of first-order losses, which includes electric-field-dependent photogeneration. In the intermediate regime, the fill factor appears to be limited by both first- and second-order losses. These findings provide additional basic understanding of the interplay between the bulk heterojunction morphology and the order of recombination in organic solar cells. They also shed light on the limitations of widely used transport models below the percolation threshold. KW - bulk heterojunctions KW - charge transport KW - organic solar cells KW - percolation threshold KW - recombination losses Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201703339 SN - 1614-6832 SN - 1614-6840 VL - 8 IS - 18 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER -