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Title: Band-like Charge Photogeneration at a Crystalline Organic Donor/Acceptor Interface

Abstract

Organic photovoltaic cells possess desirable practical characteristics, such as the potential for low-cost fabrication on flexible substrates, but they lag behind their inorganic counterparts in performance due in part to fundamental energy loss mechanisms, such as overcoming the charge transfer (CT) state binding energy when photogenerated charge is transferred across the donor/acceptor interface. However, recent work has suggested that crystalline interfaces can reduce this binding energy due to enhanced CT state delocalization. Solar cells based on rubrene and C60 are investigated as an archetypal system because it allows the degree of crystallinity to be moldulated from a highly disordered to highly ordered system. Using a postdeposition annealing method to transform as-deposited amorphous rubrene thin films into ones that are highly crystalline, it is shown that the CT state of a highly crystalline rubrene/C60 heterojunction undergoes extreme delocalization parallel to the interface leading to a band-like state that exhibits a linear Stark effect. This state parallels the direct charge formation of inorganic solar cells and reduces energetic losses by 220 meV compared with 12 other archetypal heterojunctions reported in the literature.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [1];  [4];  [1];  [5];  [2];  [1]; ORCiD logo [5]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Electrical Engineering
  2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States). Dept. of Chemistry
  3. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Chemical and Biological Engineering
  4. Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL (United States). Dept. of Chemistry; Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Center for Nanoscale Materials
  5. Princeton Univ., NJ (United States). Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Excitonics (CE); Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; Department of Defense (DoD); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities Division
OSTI Identifier:
1470430
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1412584; OSTI ID: 1595406
Grant/Contract Number:  
SC0001088; SC0012458; SC0012365; DMR‐1332208; DMR‐1420541; AC02‐06CH11357
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Advanced Energy Materials
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 8; Journal Issue: 9; Related Information: CE partners with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (lead); Brookhaven National Laboratory; Harvard University; Journal ID: ISSN 1614-6832
Publisher:
Wiley
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
14 SOLAR ENERGY; 42 ENGINEERING; solar (photovoltaic); solid state lighting; photosynthesis (natural and artificial); charge transport; optics; synthesis (novel materials); synthesis (self-assembly); synthesis (scalable processing); charge transfer state; crystal; delocalized; rubrene; solar cells

Citation Formats

Fusella, Michael A., Brigeman, Alyssa N., Welborn, Matthew, Purdum, Geoffrey E., Yan, Yixin, Schaller, Richard D., Lin, YunHui L., Loo, Yueh-Lin, Voorhis, Troy Van, Giebink, Noel C., and Rand, Barry P. Band-like Charge Photogeneration at a Crystalline Organic Donor/Acceptor Interface. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1002/aenm.201701494.
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Fusella, Michael A., Brigeman, Alyssa N., Welborn, Matthew, Purdum, Geoffrey E., Yan, Yixin, Schaller, Richard D., Lin, YunHui L., Loo, Yueh-Lin, Voorhis, Troy Van, Giebink, Noel C., & Rand, Barry P. Band-like Charge Photogeneration at a Crystalline Organic Donor/Acceptor Interface. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701494
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Fusella, Michael A., Brigeman, Alyssa N., Welborn, Matthew, Purdum, Geoffrey E., Yan, Yixin, Schaller, Richard D., Lin, YunHui L., Loo, Yueh-Lin, Voorhis, Troy Van, Giebink, Noel C., and Rand, Barry P. Fri . "Band-like Charge Photogeneration at a Crystalline Organic Donor/Acceptor Interface". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701494. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1470430.
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@article{osti_1470430,
title = {Band-like Charge Photogeneration at a Crystalline Organic Donor/Acceptor Interface},
author = {Fusella, Michael A. and Brigeman, Alyssa N. and Welborn, Matthew and Purdum, Geoffrey E. and Yan, Yixin and Schaller, Richard D. and Lin, YunHui L. and Loo, Yueh-Lin and Voorhis, Troy Van and Giebink, Noel C. and Rand, Barry P.},
abstractNote = {Organic photovoltaic cells possess desirable practical characteristics, such as the potential for low-cost fabrication on flexible substrates, but they lag behind their inorganic counterparts in performance due in part to fundamental energy loss mechanisms, such as overcoming the charge transfer (CT) state binding energy when photogenerated charge is transferred across the donor/acceptor interface. However, recent work has suggested that crystalline interfaces can reduce this binding energy due to enhanced CT state delocalization. Solar cells based on rubrene and C60 are investigated as an archetypal system because it allows the degree of crystallinity to be moldulated from a highly disordered to highly ordered system. Using a postdeposition annealing method to transform as-deposited amorphous rubrene thin films into ones that are highly crystalline, it is shown that the CT state of a highly crystalline rubrene/C60 heterojunction undergoes extreme delocalization parallel to the interface leading to a band-like state that exhibits a linear Stark effect. This state parallels the direct charge formation of inorganic solar cells and reduces energetic losses by 220 meV compared with 12 other archetypal heterojunctions reported in the literature.},
doi = {10.1002/aenm.201701494},
journal = {Advanced Energy Materials},
number = 9,
volume = 8,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Dec 08 00:00:00 EST 2017},
month = {Fri Dec 08 00:00:00 EST 2017}
}
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https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201701494
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    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Charge-transfer electronic states in organic solar cells
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