Magnetic Studies of Photovoltaic Processes in Organic Solar Cells

Journal Article · Fri Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2010 · IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTQE.2010.2049479· OSTI ID:982412

Zang, Huidong ^[1]; Ivanov, Ilia N ^[2]; Hu, Bin ^[2]

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1. University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK)
2. ORNL

In this paper, we use magnetic field effects of photocurrent (MFEPC ) to study the photovoltaic processes in pristine conjugated polymer, bulk heterojunction, and double-layer solar cells, respectively, based on poly(3-alkylthiophene) (P3HT). The MFEPC reveals that the photocurrent generation undergoes the dissociation in polaron pair states and the charge reaction in excitonic states in pristine conjugated polymers. As for the bulk-heterojunction solar cells consisting of electron donor P3HT and electron acceptor [6,6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM), the MFEPC indicates that the dissociated electrons and holes inevitably form the intermolecular charge-transfer (CT) complexes at donor and acceptor interfaces. Essentially, the photocurrent generation relies on the further dissociation of intermolecular CT complexes. Moreover, we use double-layer solar cell to further study the intermolecular CT complexes with well-controlled donor acceptor interfaces based on double-layer P3HT/TiOx design. We find that the increase in free energies can significantly reduce the density of CT complexes upon thermal annealing.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences
• Sponsoring Organization: SC USDOE - Office of Science (SC)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 982412
• Journal Information: IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Journal Name: IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics Journal Issue: 6 Vol. PP
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
ANNEALING
BINDING ENERGY
DESIGN
DISSOCIATION
ELECTRONS
ESTERS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
ORGANIC SOLAR CELLS
PHOTOCURRENTS
POLARONS
POLYMERS
SOLAR CELLS
Triplet state
VALENCE
magnetic field
organic photovotaics