Absence of Mixed Phase in Organic Photovoltaic Active Layers Facilitates Use of Green Solvent Processing
Abstract
In this paper, we examine the morphology of a donor molecule:fullerene organic photovoltaic (OPV) active layer, processed from the “green solvent” 2-methyl-THF (m-THF), as well as the conformation of the two OPV constituent components in the casting solution. We observe that the small molecule (X2) has a weak association with itself in chloroform solvent, whereas it does not self-associate in m-THF. Despite this difference, the morphologies of the final processed films are extraordinarily similar: there is negligible molecularly mixed phase in the layer, and the domain sizes of the pure X2 and pure fullerene are 15–20 nm. We attribute this similarity between the final films to the strong aggregation behavior of X2 upon drying; changes in solvent or solvent additive have therefore only a minor effect on the final bulk heterojunction morphology. This contrasts with the majority of other OPV molecular donor semiconductor systems, which need careful tuning of solvent and/or solvent additive to achieve the optimal morphology and photovoltaic performance. Finally, we argue that the absence of a mixed phase is a result of the strong self-aggregation behavior of X2 and a key property of this material combination that makes it robust to a change in processing solvent.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[4];
[3];
[1]
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Electrical Engineering Dept.
- Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States). Dept. of Materials and Chemistry & Biochemistry
- Georgia Inst. of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States). School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Office of Naval Research (ONR) (United States); USDOD
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1461805
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-76SF00515; N00014-14-1-0580; N00014-16-1-2520; N00014-16-1-2678
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Physical Chemistry. C
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 122; Journal Issue: 20; Journal ID: ISSN 1932-7447
- Publisher:
- American Chemical Society
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Citation Formats
Oosterhout, Stefan D., Savikhin, Victoria, Burgers, Mark A., Zhang, Junxiang, Zhang, Yadong, Marder, Seth R., Bazan, Guillermo C., and Toney, Michael F. Absence of Mixed Phase in Organic Photovoltaic Active Layers Facilitates Use of Green Solvent Processing. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b01600.
Oosterhout, Stefan D., Savikhin, Victoria, Burgers, Mark A., Zhang, Junxiang, Zhang, Yadong, Marder, Seth R., Bazan, Guillermo C., & Toney, Michael F. Absence of Mixed Phase in Organic Photovoltaic Active Layers Facilitates Use of Green Solvent Processing. United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b01600
Oosterhout, Stefan D., Savikhin, Victoria, Burgers, Mark A., Zhang, Junxiang, Zhang, Yadong, Marder, Seth R., Bazan, Guillermo C., and Toney, Michael F. Mon .
"Absence of Mixed Phase in Organic Photovoltaic Active Layers Facilitates Use of Green Solvent Processing". United States. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b01600. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1461805.
@article{osti_1461805,
title = {Absence of Mixed Phase in Organic Photovoltaic Active Layers Facilitates Use of Green Solvent Processing},
author = {Oosterhout, Stefan D. and Savikhin, Victoria and Burgers, Mark A. and Zhang, Junxiang and Zhang, Yadong and Marder, Seth R. and Bazan, Guillermo C. and Toney, Michael F.},
abstractNote = {In this paper, we examine the morphology of a donor molecule:fullerene organic photovoltaic (OPV) active layer, processed from the “green solvent” 2-methyl-THF (m-THF), as well as the conformation of the two OPV constituent components in the casting solution. We observe that the small molecule (X2) has a weak association with itself in chloroform solvent, whereas it does not self-associate in m-THF. Despite this difference, the morphologies of the final processed films are extraordinarily similar: there is negligible molecularly mixed phase in the layer, and the domain sizes of the pure X2 and pure fullerene are 15–20 nm. We attribute this similarity between the final films to the strong aggregation behavior of X2 upon drying; changes in solvent or solvent additive have therefore only a minor effect on the final bulk heterojunction morphology. This contrasts with the majority of other OPV molecular donor semiconductor systems, which need careful tuning of solvent and/or solvent additive to achieve the optimal morphology and photovoltaic performance. Finally, we argue that the absence of a mixed phase is a result of the strong self-aggregation behavior of X2 and a key property of this material combination that makes it robust to a change in processing solvent.},
doi = {10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b01600},
journal = {Journal of Physical Chemistry. C},
number = 20,
volume = 122,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Apr 30 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Mon Apr 30 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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Figure 1: Chemical structure of X2.
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