journal article·2013-02

Tailored exciton diffusion in organic photovoltaic cells for enhanced power conversion efficiency

S. Matthew Menke, Wade A. Luhman, Russell J. Holmes

Nature Materials· Volume 12· Issue 2
Publisher page

Abstract

Photoconversion in planar-heterojunction organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs) is limited by a short exciton diffusion length (L(D)) that restricts migration to the dissociating electron donor/acceptor interface. Consequently, bulk heterojunctions are often used to realize high efficiency as these structures reduce the distance an exciton must travel to be dissociated. Here, we present an alternative approach that seeks to directly engineer L(D) by optimizing the intermolecular separation and consequently, the photophysical parameters responsible for excitonic energy transfer. By diluting the electron donor boron subphthalocyanine chloride into a wide-energy-gap host material, we optimize the degree of interaction between donor molecules and observe a ~50% increase in L(D). Using this approach, we construct planar-heterojunction OPVs with a power conversion efficiency of (4.4 ± 0.3)%, > 30% larger than the case of optimized devices containing an undiluted donor layer. The underlying correlation between L(D) and the degree of molecular interaction has wide implications for the design of both OPV active materials and device architectures.
Source: europepmc · Quality: candidate unverified · Source record ↗

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics · Conducting polymers and applications · Perovskite Materials and Applications

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

References (42)

Show source-provided references
1. Tang, C. W. 2-layer organic photovoltaic cell. Appl. Phys. Lett. 48, 183–185 (1986).10.1063/1.96937 ↗
2. Gregg, B. A. Excitonic solar cells. J. Phys. Chem. B 107, 4688–4698 (2003).10.1021/jp022507x ↗
3. Sun, Y. et al. Solution-processed small-molecule solar cells with 6.7% efficiency. Nature Mater. 11, 44–48 (2012).10.1038/nmat3160 ↗
4. Peumans, P., Uchida, S. & Forrest, S. R. Efficient bulk heterojunction photovoltaic cells using small-molecular-weight organic thin films. Nature 425, 158–162 (2003).10.1038/nature01949 ↗
5. Liang, Y. et al. For the bright future—bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells with power conversion efficiency of 7.4%. Adv. Mater. 22, E135–E138 (2010).10.1002/adma.200903528 ↗
6. He, Z. et al. Simultaneous enhancement of open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density, and fill factor in polymer solar cells. Adv. Mater. 23, 4636–4643 (2011).10.1002/adma.201103006 ↗
7. Fitzner, R. et al. Dicyanovinyl-substituted oligothiophenes: Structure-property relationships and application in vacuum-processed small-molecule organic solar cells. Adv. Funct. Mater. 21, 897–910 (2011).10.1002/adfm.201001639 ↗
8. Yu, G., Gao, J., Hummelen, J. C., Wudl, F. & Heeger, A. J. Polymer photovoltaic cells: Enhanced efficiencies via a network of internal donor-acceptor heterojunctions. Science 270, 1789–1791 (1995).10.1126/science.270.5243.1789 ↗
9. Halls, J. J. M. et al. Efficient photodiodes from interpenetrating polymer networks. Nature 376, 498–500 (1995).10.1038/376498a0 ↗
10. Wei, G. et al. Arylamine-based squaraine donors for use in organic solar cells. Nano Lett. 11, 4261–4264 (2011).10.1021/nl2022515 ↗
11. Yang, F., Sun, K. & Forrest, S. R. Efficient solar cells using all-organic nanocrystalline networks. Adv. Mater. 19, 4166–4171 (2007).10.1002/adma.200700837 ↗
12. Luhman, W. A. & Holmes, R. J. Enhanced exciton diffusion in an organic photovoltaic cell by energy transfer using a phosphorescent sensitizer. Appl. Phys. Lett. 94, 153304 (2009).10.1063/1.3120566 ↗
13. Rand, B. P. et al. Photocurrent enhancement in polymer: fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells doped with a phosphorescent molecule. Appl. Phys. Lett. 95, 173304 (2009).10.1063/1.3257383 ↗
14. Lunt, R. R., Benziger, J. B. & Forrest, S. R. Relationship between crystalline order and exciton diffusion length in molecular organic semiconductors. Adv. Mater. 22, 1233–1236 (2010).10.1002/adma.200902827 ↗
15. Najafov, H., Lee, B., Zhou, Q., Feldman, L. C. & Podzorov, V. Observation of long-range exciton diffusion in highly ordered organic semiconductors. Nature Mater. 9, 938–943 (2010).10.1038/nmat2872 ↗
16. Powell, R. C. & Soos, Z. G. Singlet exciton energy transfer in organic solids. J. Lumin. 11, 1–45 (1975).10.1016/0022-2313(75)90077-0 ↗
17. Förster, T. 10th Spiers Memorial Lecture. Transfer mechanisms of electronic excitation. Discuss. Faraday Soc. 27, 7–17 (1959).10.1039/DF9592700007 ↗
18. Pope, M. & Swenberg, C. E. Electronic Processes in Organic Crystals (Oxford Univ. Press, 1982).
19. Luhman, W. A. & Holmes, R. J. Investigation of energy transfer in organic photovoltaic cells and impact on exciton diffusion length measurements. Adv. Funct. Mater. 21, 764–771 (2011).10.1002/adfm.201001928 ↗
20. Maksimov, M. Z. & Rozman, I. M. On energy transfer in solid solutions. Opt. Spectrosc. 12, 337–338 (1962).
21. Kawamura, Y. et al. 100% phosphorescence quantum efficiency of Ir(III) complexes in organic semiconductor films. Appl. Phys. Lett. 86, 071104 (2005).10.1063/1.1862777 ↗
22. Coffey, D. C., Ferguson, A. J., Kopidakis, N. & Rumbles, G. Photovoltaic charge generation in organic semiconductors based on long-range energy transfer. ACS Nano 4, 5437–5445 (2010).10.1021/nn101106b ↗
23. Hardin, B. E. et al. Increased light harvesting in dye-sensitized solar cells with energy relay dyes. Nature Photon. 3, 406–411 (2009).10.1038/nphoton.2009.96 ↗
24. Currie, M. J., Mapel, J. K., Heidel, T. D., Goffri, S. & Baldo, M. A. High-efficiency organic solar concentrators for photovoltaics. Science 321, 226–228 (2008).10.1126/science.1158342 ↗
25. Pettersson, L. A. A., Roman, L. S. & Inganas, O. Modeling photocurrent action spectra of photovoltaic devices based on organic thin films. J. Appl. Phys. 86, 487–496 (1999).10.1063/1.370757 ↗
26. Holmes, R. J. et al. Efficient, deep-blue organic electrophosphorescence by guest charge trapping. Appl. Phys. Lett. 83, 3818–3820 (2003).10.1063/1.1624639 ↗
27. Scully, S. R., Armstrong, P. B., Edder, C., Frechet, J. M. J. & McGehee, M. D. Long-range resonant energy transfer for enhanced exciton harvesting for organic solar cells. Adv. Mater. 19, 2961–2966 (2007).10.1002/adma.200700917 ↗
28. Gommans, H. et al. Electro-optical study of subphthalocyanine in a bilayer organic solar cell. Adv. Funct. Mater. 17, 2653–2658 (2007).10.1002/adfm.200700398 ↗
29. Pandey, R., Gunawan, A. A., Mkhoyan, K. A. & Holmes, R. J. Efficient organic photovoltaic cells based on nanocrystalline mixtures of boron subphthalocyanine chloride and C60. Adv. Funct. Mater. 22, 617–624 (2011).10.1002/adfm.201101948 ↗
30. Lunt, R. R., Giebink, N. C., Belak, A. A., Benziger, J. B. & Forrest, S. R. Exciton diffusion lengths of organic semiconductor thin films measured by spectrally resolved photoluminescence quenching. J. Appl. Phys. 105, 053711 (2009).10.1063/1.3079797 ↗
31. Sullivan, P. et al. Halogenated boron subphthalocyanines as light harvesting electron acceptors in organic photovoltaics. Adv. Energy Mater. 1, 352–355 (2011).10.1002/aenm.201100036 ↗
32. Cheyns, D., Rand, B. P. & Heremans, P. Organic tandem solar cells with complementary absorbing layers and a high open-circuit voltage. Appl. Phys. Lett. 97, 033301 (2010).10.1063/1.3464169 ↗
33. Mutolo, K. L., Mayo, E. I., Rand, B. P., Forrest, S. R. & Thompson, M. E. Enhanced open-circuit voltage in subphthalocyanine/C-60 organic photovoltaic cells. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 128, 8108–8109 (2006).10.1021/ja061655o ↗
34. Pandey, R., Zou, Y. & Holmes, R. J. Efficient, bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaic cells based on boron subphthalocyanine chloride-C-70. Appl. Phys. Lett. 101, 033308 (2012).10.1063/1.4737902 ↗
35. Gilot, J., Barbu, I., Wienk, M. M. & Janssen, R. A. J. The use of ZnO as optical spacer in polymer solar cells: Theoretical and experimental study. Appl. Phys. Lett. 91, 113520 (2007).10.1063/1.2784961 ↗
36. Schueppel, R. et al. Controlled current matching in small molecule organic tandem solar cells using doped spacer layers. J. Appl. Phys. 107, 044503 (2010).10.1063/1.3277051 ↗
37. Scher, H. & Lax, M. Stochastic transport in a disordered solid. I. theory. Phys. Rev. B 7, 4491-4502 (1973).
38. Gommans, H., Schols, S., Kadashchuk, A., Heremans, P. & Meskers, S. C. J. Exciton diffusion length and lifetime in subphthalocyanine films. J. Phys. Chem. C 113, 2974–2979 (2009).10.1021/jp809802q ↗
39. Bulovic, V., Deshpande, R., Thompson, M. E. & Forrest, S. R. Tuning the color emission of thin film molecular organic light emitting devices by the solid state solvation effect. Chem. Phys. Lett. 308, 317–322 (1999).10.1016/S0009-2614(99)00580-1 ↗
40. Rieger, P. T., Palese, S. P. & Miller, R. J. D. On the Forster model: Computational and ultrafast studies of electronic energy transport. Chem. Phys. 221, 85–102 (1997).10.1016/S0301-0104(97)00132-8 ↗
41. Fennel, F. & Lochbrunner, S. Long distance energy transfer in a polymer matrix doped with a perylene dye. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 13, 3527–3533 (2011).10.1039/c0cp01211d ↗
42. Yuichiro, K., Hiroyuki, S. & Chihaya, A. Simple accurate system for measuring absolute photoluminescence quantum efficiency in organic solid-state thin films. Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 43, 7729–7730 (2004).10.1143/JJAP.43.7729 ↗