Enhancement of organic photovoltaic device performance via P3HT:PCBM solution heat treatment

Otieno, Francis; Mutuma, Bridget K.; Airo, Mildred; Ranganathan, K.; Erasmus, Rudolph M.; Coville, Neil J.; Wamwangi, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.tsf.2017.01.047

Cited by 21 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…The extracted PCE and J SC values are shown as a function of ODT content in Figure b. The values without ODT match commonly achieved PCE values for not fully optimized device architectures (e.g., no antireflection coating) . A gradual improvement in PCE with increasing ODT content is observed, which is mainly ascribed to the positive development of J SC .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 54%

Influence of Solvent Additive 1,8‐Octanedithiol on P3HT:PCBM Solar Cells

Wang

Song

Magerl

et al. 2018

Adv Funct Materials

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Processing solvent additives in polymer:fullerene bulk heterojunction systems are known as a promising method to enhance photovoltaic performance. It is generally agreed that solvent additives enable polymers to have a high degree of molecular order which increases the device performance. However, the understanding of the efficiency enhancement is not complete. There is a lack of insight regarding the quantitative determination of the molecular miscibility between polymer and fullerene as well as the inner morphology changes induced by the additives. In this work, understanding of the influence of the solvent additive 1,8-octanedithiol (ODT) is provided on the classic system poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl):[6,6]-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (P3HT:PCBM) films. The impact on polymer crystallinity, surface structure, inner morphology, and quantitative molecular miscibility of P3HT and PCBM is studied as a function of ODT volume concentration. The crystallinity is probed with absorption spectroscopy and grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering. The morphology and miscibility are characterized via atomic force microscopy and time-of-flight grazing incidence small angle neutron scattering. Besides an increased crystallinity and prominent phase separation, ODT increases the solubility of PCBM in P3HT and reduces the size of amorphous P3HT domains. Moreover, solvent processing with a high ODT concentration alters the vertical material composition of the active layer.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 54%

Influence of Solvent Additive 1,8‐Octanedithiol on P3HT:PCBM Solar Cells

Wang

Song

Magerl

et al. 2018

Adv Funct Materials

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“…The past decades have experienced a surge in the use of fullerene derivatives such as PC 61 BM and PC 71 BM (Falke et al, 2014;Zhao W. et al, 2015;Otieno et al, 2016Otieno et al, , 2017 as electron acceptors due to their favorable electron affinity. These ball-like fully conjugated structures have strong electron affinity and unipolar electron transport that promotes delocalization of electrons (Gélinas et al, 2014).…”

Section: Hencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The donor:acceptor/PEDOT:PSS/ITO layers on glass were metallized by thermal evaporation of Al to form the ITO/PEDOT:PSS/binary blend/Al device architecture. The resulting OPV device was annealed over a hot plate for 10 min at 120 • C to increase the interconnectivity of the blend network (Otieno et al, 2017).…”

Section: Materials and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative Investigation of Fullerene PC71BM and Non-fullerene ITIC-Th Acceptors Blended With P3HT or PBDB-T Donor Polymers for PV Applications

et al. 2021

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Fundamentally, organic solar cells (OSCs) with a bulk-heterojunction active layer are made of at least two electronically dissimilar molecules, in which photoabsorption in one (donor) generates Frenkel excitons. The formation of free charge carriers emerge after exciton dissociation at the donor:acceptor interface. In the past decade, most of the progress in enhanced device performance has been steered by the rapid development of novel donor and acceptor materials and on device engineering. Among these donor materials, regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) produced better performance despite the mismatch of its absorption coefficient with the solar emission spectrum. Comparatively the donor PBDB-T exhibits an outstanding absorption coefficient with a deeper-lying highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) level. Previously most of the efficient acceptors were based on fullerene molecules characterized by limited photoabsorption and stability. In contrast, the recently developed non-fullerene OSCs have a tunable absorption spectrum and exhibit improved stability. In this work, we explore the fundamental sources of the differences in the device performance for different blend compositions made of fullerene derivative (PC71BM) and non-fullerene (ITIC-Th) when paired with the polymer donors P3HT and PBDB-T. The characteristic changes of the optical properties of these blends and their roles in device performance are also investigated. We also studied charge generation where PBDB-T:PC71BM showed the highest maximum exciton generation rate (Gmax) of 3.22 × 1028 s–1 while P3HT: ITIC-Th gave the lowest (0.96 × 1028 s–1). Also noted, PC71BM based counterparts gave better charge transfer capabilities as seen from the lower PL quenching and higher charge carrier dissociation plus collection probability P(E,T) derived from a plot of Jph/Jsat ratio under short-circuit conditions against the effective voltages.

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“…Doping resulted in a clear red shift of the optical absorption, mainly in the 512 nm band, which shifted from 500 to 512 nm. The red shift in the absorption band could be attributed to increasing the π electron delocalization, lowering the energy band of the π and π*, and improving the optical π-π* transitions [ 30 , 31 ]. The increase in the light-harvesting properties of the P 3 HT:PCBM:Sb 2 S 3 NC blend improved the photo-generated carriers and enhanced the charge transport due to the π-π interactions between the Sb 2 S 3 NCs and the P 3 HT molecules.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimization of Sb2S3 Nanocrystal Concentrations in P3HT: PCBM Layers to Improve the Performance of Polymer Solar Cells

et al. 2021

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In this study, polymer solar cells were synthesized by adding Sb2S3 nanocrystals (NCs) to thin blended films with polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene)(P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric-acid-methyl-ester (PCBM) as the p-type material prepared via the spin-coating method. The purpose of this study is to investigate the dependence of polymer solar cells’ performance on the concentration of Sb2S3 nanocrystals. The effect of the Sb2S3 nanocrystal concentrations (0.01, 0.02, 0.03, and 0.04 mg/mL) in the polymer’s active layer was determined using different characterization techniques. X-ray diffraction (XRD) displayed doped ratio dependences of P3HT crystallite orientations of P3HT crystallites inside a block polymer film. Introducing Sb2S3 NCs increased the light harvesting and regulated the energy levels, improving the electronic parameters. Considerable photoluminescence quenching was observed due to additional excited electron pathways through the Sb2S3 NCs. A UV–visible absorption spectra measurement showed the relationship between the optoelectronic properties and improved surface morphology, and this enhancement was detected by a red shift in the absorption spectrum. The absorber layer’s doping concentration played a definitive role in improving the device’s performance. Using a 0.04 mg/mL doping concentration, a solar cell device with a glass /ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT-PCBM: Sb2S3:NC/MoO3/Ag structure achieved a maximum power conversion efficiency of 2.72%. These Sb2S3 NCs obtained by solvothermal fabrication blended with a P3HT: PCBM polymer, would pave the way for a more effective design of organic photovoltaic devices.

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Enhancement of organic photovoltaic device performance via P3HT:PCBM solution heat treatment

Cited by 21 publications

References 37 publications

Influence of Solvent Additive 1,8‐Octanedithiol on P3HT:PCBM Solar Cells

Influence of Solvent Additive 1,8‐Octanedithiol on P3HT:PCBM Solar Cells

Comparative Investigation of Fullerene PC71BM and Non-fullerene ITIC-Th Acceptors Blended With P3HT or PBDB-T Donor Polymers for PV Applications

Optimization of Sb2S3 Nanocrystal Concentrations in P3HT: PCBM Layers to Improve the Performance of Polymer Solar Cells

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