The role of alkane dithiols in controlling polymer crystallization in small band gap polymer:Fullerene solar cells

Agostinelli, Tiziano, Ferenczi, Toby A. M., Pires, Ellis, Foster, Samuel, Maurano, Andrea, Müller, Christian, Ballantyne, Amy, Hampton, Mark David, Lilliu, Samuele, Campoy-Quiles, Mariano, Azimi, Hamed, Morana, Mauro, Bradley, Donal D. C., Durrant, James, Macdonald, John Emyr ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5504-1692, Stingelin, Natalie and Nelson, Jenny 2011. The role of alkane dithiols in controlling polymer crystallization in small band gap polymer:Fullerene solar cells. Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics 49 (10) , pp. 717-724. 10.1002/polb.22244

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Abstract

The effect of the addition of 1,8-octanedithiol (ODT) during processing on the microstructure of blend films of poly[2,6-(4,4-bis-(2-ethylhexyl)-4H-cyclopenta[2,1-b;3,4-b′]dithiophene)-alt-4,7(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole)] (PCPDTBT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C71 butyric acid methyl ester ([70]PCBM) is studied. Grazing incidence X-ray diffraction and absorption spectroscopy show that the crystalline order of PCPDTBT increases when ODT is introduced in the solution phase either to neat polymer systems or to blends with [70]PCBM. The increased crystalline order is accompanied by less dispersive hole transport in the polymer, and leads to a more efficient formation of a percolating fullerene network within the blend. This contributes to an increase in photocurrent generation. However, the bimolecular recombination rate as determined from photovoltage transients increases upon addition of ODT, limiting the power conversion efficiency to values well below those expected from the energy levels of PCPDTBT. We propose some explanations for this increase in bimolecular recombination, based also on variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry measurements. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part B: Polym Phys, 2011

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Physics and Astronomy
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Uncontrolled Keywords:	additives; blends; charge transport; conjugated polymers; crystallization; fullerenes
Publisher:	John Wiley
ISSN:	0887-6266
Last Modified:	19 Oct 2022 08:53
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/19368

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