Photovoltaic enhancement of organic solar cells by a bridged donor-acceptor block copolymer approach

Sun, Sam-Shajing; Zhang, Cheng; Ledbetter, Abram J.; Choi, Soobum; Seo, Kang Deuk; Bonner, Carl E.; Drees, Martin; Sariciftci, Niyazi Serdar

doi:10.1063/1.2437100

Cited by 109 publications

(99 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…171,121 Indeed, this methodology has been further optimized to give a device with exceptionally high V oc of around 1.1 V. 172 It was also exploited to separate P3HT and polystyrene blocks carrying fullerenes. 173 Elsewhere, the size of the flexible linker or ''spacer'' has been shown to have great influence on the degrees of order attainable by the constituent blocks.…”

Section: As Single and Multicomponent Layersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Block copolymer strategies for solar cell technology

Topham¹,

Parnell²,

Hiorns³

2011

J Polym Sci B Polym Phys

186

169

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A simple overview of the methods used and the expected benefits of block copolymers in organic photovoltaic devices is given in this review. The description of the photovoltaic process makes it clear how the detailed self-assembly properties of block copolymers can be exploited. Organic photovoltaic technology, an inexpensive, clean and renewable energy source, is an extremely promising option for replacing fossil fuels. It is expected to deliver printable devices processed on flexible substrates using high-volume techniques. Such devices, however, currently lack the long-term stability and efficiency to allow organic photovoltaics to surpass current technologies. Block copolymers are envisaged to help overcome these obstacles because of their long term structural stability and their solid-state morphology being of the appropriate dimensions to efficiently perform charge collection and transfer to electrodes.

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Section: As Single and Multicomponent Layersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Block copolymer strategies for solar cell technology

Topham¹,

Parnell²,

Hiorns³

2011

J Polym Sci B Polym Phys

186

169

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…[14][15][16][17][18][19] Block copolymers composed of an electron-donating and an electronaccepting block are therefore particularly interesting for PV applications and are presently studied worldwide by several research groups. [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37] Particularly, rod-coil block copolymers using poly[(2,5-di(2-ethyl)hexyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (DEH-PPV) as electron donor and various coil blocks (such as polystyrene or polybutylacrylate) with covalently linked fullerene moieties as electron acceptor have been investigated intensively. [23][24][25][26][27][28] Although these studies have given considerable insight into the physics of copolymer self-assembly, their efficient utilization as the active layer in PV devices has not yet been fully demonstrated.…”

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confidence: 99%

A New Supramolecular Route for Using Rod‐Coil Block Copolymers in Photovoltaic Applications

et al. 2010

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International audienceA new polymer blend formed by poly(3-hexylthiophene)-poly(4-vinylpyridine) (P3HT-P4VP) block copolymers and [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) is reported. The P4VP and PCBM are mixed together by weak supramolecular interactions, and the resulting materials exhibit microphase separated morphologies of electron-donor and electron-acceptor rich domains. The properties of the blend, used in photovoltaic devices as active layers, are also discussed

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“…Below the order-disorder transition temperature, they form a network of physically stable crosslinks by accomplishing a thermodynamic phase-separation process, providing long-time stable morphologies with finer scale and higher performance compared to polymer blends. 68 For example, Sun et al 20 showed that a photovoltaic device composed of a thin film of a donor-bridge-acceptor-bridge-type block copolymer exhibits a significant performance improvement over its corresponding DA blend, i.e., the open-circuit voltage V oc increased from 0.14 to 1.1 V and the short-circuit current J sc increased from 0.017 to 0.058 mA cm −2 under identical conditions. In this system the donor consisted of an alkyl-derivatized polyp-phenylenevinylene (PPV) conjugated block, whereas the acceptor and bridge were composed of a sulfone-alkyl derivatized PPV conjugated block as well as a nonconjugated and flexible unit, respectively.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…19 The relatively low power conversion efficiency of OPV cells can mainly be attributed to loss phenomena of the elementary particles involved in the photovoltaic process, such as photon loss, exciton loss, and charge carrier loss. 20 These loss phenomena can occur during the following steps of the photovoltaic process: 21 (1) photon absorption and exciton generation; (2) exciton diffusion to the DA heterojunction; (3) exciton separation and charge carrier generation at the DA heterojunction; (4) diffusion of the charge carriers to the respective electrodes; and (5) collection of the charge carriers at the electrodes. With the exception of the process of exciton diffusion to the DA heterojunction, none of the previously described processes have been optimized in a satisfactory way in case of the polymer solar cell materials currently available.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new multiscale modeling method for simulating the loss processes in polymer solar cell nanodevices

Pershin

Donets

Baeurle

2012

The Journal of Chemical Physics

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The photoelectric power conversion efficiency of polymer solar cells is till now, compared to conventional inorganic solar cells, still relatively low with maximum values ranging from 7% to 8%. This essentially relates to the existence of exciton and charge carrier loss phenomena, reducing the performance of polymer solar cells significantly. In this paper we introduce a new computer simulation technique, which permits to explore the causes of the occurrence of such phenomena at the nanoscale and to design new photovoltaic materials with optimized opto-electronic properties. Our approach consists in coupling a mesoscopic field-theoretic method with a suitable dynamic Monte Carlo algorithm, to model the elementary photovoltaic processes. Using this algorithm, we investigate the influence of structural characteristics and different device conditions on the exciton generation and charge transport efficiencies in case of a novel nanostructured polymer blend. More specifically, we find that the disjunction of continuous percolation paths leads to the creation of dead ends, resulting in charge carrier losses through charge recombination. Moreover, we observe that defects are characterized by a low exciton dissociation efficiency due to a high charge accumulation, counteracting the charge generation process. From these observations, we conclude that both the charge carrier loss and the exciton loss phenomena lead to a dramatic decrease in the internal quantum efficiency. Finally, by analyzing the photovoltaic behavior of the nanostructures under different circuit conditions, we demonstrate that charge injection significantly determines the impact of the defects on the solar cell performance.

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Photovoltaic enhancement of organic solar cells by a bridged donor-acceptor block copolymer approach

Cited by 109 publications

References 13 publications

Block copolymer strategies for solar cell technology

Block copolymer strategies for solar cell technology

A New Supramolecular Route for Using Rod‐Coil Block Copolymers in Photovoltaic Applications

A new multiscale modeling method for simulating the loss processes in polymer solar cell nanodevices

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