1333249-02-7Relevant academic research and scientific papers
Efficient ternary blend bulk heterojunction solar cells with tunable open-circuit voltage
Khlyabich, Petr P.,Burkhart, Beate,Thompson, Barry C.
, p. 14534 - 14537 (2011)
To explore the potential of ternary blend bulk heterojunction (BHJ) photovoltaics as a general platform for increasing the attainable performance of organic solar cells, a model system based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as the donor and two soluble fullerene acceptors, phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC61BM) and indene-C60 bisadduct (ICBA), was examined. In all of the solar cells, the overall ratio of polymer to fullerene was maintained at 1:1, while the composition of the fullerene component (PC61BM:ICBA ratio) was varied. Photovoltaic devices showed high short-circuit current densities (Jsc) and fill factors (FF) (>0.57) at all fullerene ratios, while the open-circuit voltage (V oc) was found to vary from 0.61 to 0.84 V as the fraction of ICBA was increased. These results indicate that the Voc in ternary blend BHJ solar cells is not limited to the smallest Voc of the corresponding binary blend solar cells but can be varied between the extreme Voc values without significant effect on the Jsc or FF. By extension, this result suggests that ternary blends provide a potentially effective route toward maximizing the attainable JscVoc product (which is directly proportional to the solar cell efficiency) in BHJ solar cells and that with judicious selection of donor and acceptor components, solar cells with efficiencies exceeding the theoretical limits for binary blend solar cells could be possible without sacrificing the simplicity of a single active-layer processing step.
Indene - C60 bisadduct: A new acceptor for high-performance polymer solar cells
He, Youjun,Chen, Hsiang-Yu,Hou, Jianhui,Li, Yongfang
, p. 1377 - 1382 (2010)
Polymer solar cells (PSCs) are commonly composed of a blend film of a conjugated polymer donor and a soluble C60 derivative acceptor sandwiched between an ITO anode and a low-workfunction metal cathode. Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C-61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) are the most widely used donor and acceptor materials, respectively. However, the low LUMO energy level of PCBM limits the open circuit voltage (Voc) of the P3HT-based PSCs to ca. 0.6 V. Here we synthesized a new soluble C60 derivative, indene - C60 bisadduct (ICBA), with a LUMO energy level 0.17 eV higher than that of PCBM. The PSC based on P3HT with ICBA as acceptor shows a higher Voc of 0.84 V and higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.44% under the illumination of AM1.5, 100 mW/cm2, while the PSC based on P3HT/PCBM displays a Voc of 0.58 V and PCE of 3.88% under the same experimental conditions. The results indicate that ICBA is an alternative high-performance acceptor and could be widely used in high-performance PSCs.
