Nonthermal Site Occupation at the Donor-Acceptor Interface of Organic Solar Cells
Abstract
Here, we investigate the nature of occupation and relaxation within the charge transfer density of states (CT DOS) for bulk heterojunction organic solar cells consisting of the donor boron subphthalocyanine chloride and the acceptor C60. We observe relaxation of geminate CT states on a sub-ns timescale via an approximately 70-meV dynamic redshift in their photoluminescence, whereas free carrier relaxation at longer times leads to the formation of nongeminate CT states at even lower energy. In steady state, we find that thermalization within the DOS is incomplete, resulting in a Boltzmann-like CT state distribution characterized by an effective temperature above that of the ambient. These findings confirm that electron and hole populations can be far from equilibrium in organic solar cells and may prompt a reassessment of analyses that assume the same temperature for their charge-carrier distributions in the dark and under illumination.
- Authors:
-
- Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Princeton Univ., NJ (United States); Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1595576
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1546137
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0012458; SC0012365
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Applied
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 10; Journal Issue: 3; Journal ID: ISSN 2331-7019
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; 14 SOLAR ENERGY; Organic semiconductors; nonequilibrium; photovoltaics
Citation Formats
Brigeman, A. N., Fusella, M. A., Rand, B. P., and Giebink, N. C. Nonthermal Site Occupation at the Donor-Acceptor Interface of Organic Solar Cells. United States: N. p., 2018.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevApplied.10.034034.
Brigeman, A. N., Fusella, M. A., Rand, B. P., & Giebink, N. C. Nonthermal Site Occupation at the Donor-Acceptor Interface of Organic Solar Cells. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.10.034034
Brigeman, A. N., Fusella, M. A., Rand, B. P., and Giebink, N. C. Tue .
"Nonthermal Site Occupation at the Donor-Acceptor Interface of Organic Solar Cells". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.10.034034. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1595576.
@article{osti_1595576,
title = {Nonthermal Site Occupation at the Donor-Acceptor Interface of Organic Solar Cells},
author = {Brigeman, A. N. and Fusella, M. A. and Rand, B. P. and Giebink, N. C.},
abstractNote = {Here, we investigate the nature of occupation and relaxation within the charge transfer density of states (CT DOS) for bulk heterojunction organic solar cells consisting of the donor boron subphthalocyanine chloride and the acceptor C60. We observe relaxation of geminate CT states on a sub-ns timescale via an approximately 70-meV dynamic redshift in their photoluminescence, whereas free carrier relaxation at longer times leads to the formation of nongeminate CT states at even lower energy. In steady state, we find that thermalization within the DOS is incomplete, resulting in a Boltzmann-like CT state distribution characterized by an effective temperature above that of the ambient. These findings confirm that electron and hole populations can be far from equilibrium in organic solar cells and may prompt a reassessment of analyses that assume the same temperature for their charge-carrier distributions in the dark and under illumination.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevApplied.10.034034},
journal = {Physical Review Applied},
number = 3,
volume = 10,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Sep 18 00:00:00 EDT 2018},
month = {Tue Sep 18 00:00:00 EDT 2018}
}
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