Charge carrier recombination in organic solar cells

Proctor, Christopher M.; Kuik, Martijn; Nguyen, Thuc‐Quyen

doi:10.1016/j.progpolymsci.2013.08.008

Cited by 602 publications

(551 citation statements)

References 201 publications

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“…In many thin-film solar cells, nongeminate recombination might also substantially affect charge collection and therefore the solar cell fill factor and short circuit current [7][8][9][10][11] . Thus, identification of the main sources of the non-geminate recombination loss for a given device is of high general interest for the field of photovoltaics.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Discriminating between surface and bulk recombination in organic solar cells by studying the thickness dependence of the open-circuit voltage

Zonno

Krogmeier

Katte

et al. 2016

Applied Physics Letters

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In case of thin-film solar cells it is often rather difficult to determine what the dominant recombination mechanism is. In particular it is difficult to distinguish recombination at the interface between the absorber layer and the electrodes (typically called surface recombination) from recombination in the bulk of the absorber -or in case of organic solar cells at the internal donor-acceptor interfaces. Here, we suggest a method to distinguish surface and bulk recombination in thin-film solar cells based on the thickness dependence of the saturation current density, which we derive from the open-circuit voltage and the photocurrent at short circuit or reverse bias. By means of numerical simulations, we show that surface and bulk recombination currents scale differently with thickness assuming the material properties to be unchanged. We test our predictions on a range of organic solar cell data from our laboratory and from literature and show that in the field of organic photovoltaics the whole range of cases, from mostly surface limited to purely bulk limited, is observed.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Discriminating between surface and bulk recombination in organic solar cells by studying the thickness dependence of the open-circuit voltage

Zonno

Krogmeier

Katte

et al. 2016

Applied Physics Letters

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“…It is known that high and well-balanced hole and electron mobilities (µ h and µ e ) are the key factors to suppress charge recombination and boost J sc and FF of PSCs. [24,52] In this work, all the four blends present low µ h and µ e on the order of 10 −5 cm 2 V −1 s −1 . We notice that they are much lower than the mobilities (on the order of 10 −4 cm 2 V −1 s −1 ) of the PTB7-Th:PNDI-T10 all-PSC, where a high FF of 0.71 was achieved.…”

Section: Space Charge Limited Current Charge (Sclc) Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 50%

8.0% Efficient All‐Polymer Solar Cells with High Photovoltage of 1.1 V and Internal Quantum Efficiency near Unity

Zhang

et al. 2017

Advanced Energy Materials

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In very recent years, growing efforts have been devoted to the development of all‐polymer solar cells (all‐PSCs). One of the advantages of all‐PSCs over the fullerene‐based PSCs is the versatile design of both donor and acceptor polymers which allows the optimization of energy levels to maximize the open‐circuit voltage (Voc). However, there is no successful example of all‐PSCs with both high Voc over 1 V and high power conversion efficiency (PCE) up to 8% reported so far. In this work, a combination of a donor polymer poly[4,8‐bis(5‐(2‐octylthio)thiophen‐2‐yl)benzo[1,2‐b:4,5‐b′]dithiophene‐2,6‐diyl‐alt‐(5‐(2‐ethylhexyl)‐4H‐thieno[3,4‐c]pyrrole‐4,6(5H)‐dione)‐1,3‐diyl] (PBDTS‐TPD) with a low‐lying highest occupied molecular orbital level and an acceptor polymer poly[[N,N′‐bis(2‐octyldodecyl)‐naphthalene‐1,4,5,8‐bis(dicarboximide)‐2,6‐diyl]‐alt‐thiophene‐2,5‐diyl] (PNDI‐T) with a high‐lying lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level is used, realizing high‐performance all‐PSCs with simultaneously high Voc of 1.1 V and high PCE of 8.0%, and surpassing the performance of the corresponding PC71BM‐based PSCs. The PBDTS‐TPD:PNDI‐T all‐PSCs achieve a maximum internal quantum efficiency of 95% at 450 nm, which reveals that almost all the absorbed photons can be converted into free charges and collected by electrodes. This work demonstrates the advantages of all‐PSCs by incorporating proper donor and acceptor polymers to boost both Voc and PCEs.

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“…As organic solar cells are achieving efficiencies and lifetimes closer to the minimum required for commercialization, there is the need to study different modulus disposition, size, electrical connections, and individual cell behavior [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. While high efficiency modules have been reported, these (as a rule of thumb) only seem to occur on small-scale laboratory devices.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bulk Heterojunction Organic Solar Cell Area-Dependent Parameter Fluctuation

Trindade

Pereira

2017

International Journal of Photoenergy

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Organic solar cell efficiency is known to be active area dependent and is usually a problem in the upscale factor for market applications. In this work, a detailed study of organic photovoltaic devices with active layer based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and 1-(3-methoxycarbonyl)-propyl-1-phenyl-(6,6)C 61 (PCBM) is made, evaluating the effect of the change on the active area from 10 −2 to 4 cm 4 . The device structure was kept simple in order to allow the understanding of the physical effects involved. Device figures of merit were extracted from the equivalent circuit using a genetic-based algorithm, and their relationship with the active area was compared. It is observed that the efficiency drops significantly with the active area increase (as the fill factor) while the parallel and series resistance, adjusted to the active area, seems to be relatively constant and increases linearly, respectively. The short circuit current and the generated photocurrent also drop significantly with the active area increase. The open circuit voltage does not show major changes. These results are discussed considering the main influences for the observed efficiency data. Particularly, as the basic circuit model seems to fail to explain the macroscopic results, the behavior can be related with the enlargement of defect interaction.

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Charge carrier recombination in organic solar cells

Cited by 602 publications

References 201 publications

Discriminating between surface and bulk recombination in organic solar cells by studying the thickness dependence of the open-circuit voltage

Discriminating between surface and bulk recombination in organic solar cells by studying the thickness dependence of the open-circuit voltage

8.0% Efficient All‐Polymer Solar Cells with High Photovoltage of 1.1 V and Internal Quantum Efficiency near Unity

Bulk Heterojunction Organic Solar Cell Area-Dependent Parameter Fluctuation

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