Drift-Diffusion Modeling of the Effects of Structural Disorder and Carrier Mobility on the Performance of Organic Photovoltaic Devices
Abstract
We probe the effects of structural disorder on the performance of organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices via drift-diffusion modeling. Here, we utilize ensembles of spatially disordered one-dimensional mobility profiles to approximate the three-dimensional structural disorder present in actual devices. Each replica in our ensemble approximates one high-conductivity pathway through the three-dimensional network(s) present in a polymer-based bulk heterojunction solar cell, so that the ensemble-averaged behavior provides a good approximation to a full three-dimensional structurally disordered device. Our calculations show that the short-circuit current, fill factor, and power conversion efficiency of simulated devices are all negatively impacted by the inclusion of structural disorder, but that the open-circuit voltage is nearly impervious to structural defects. This is in contrast to energetic disorder, where previous studies found that spatial variation in the energy in OPV active layers causes a decrease in the open-circuit voltage. We also show that structural disorder causes the greatest detriment to device performance for feature sizes between 2 and 10 nm. Since this is on the same length scale as the fullerene crystallites in experimental devices, it suggests both that controlling structural disorder is critical to the performance of OPV devices and that the effects of structural disorder should bemore »
- Authors:
-
- Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Molecularly Engineered Energy Materials (MEEM)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1370220
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1224611
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0001342; 1112569; 1510353
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review Applied
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 4; Journal Issue: 3; Related Information: MEEM partners with University of California, Los Angeles (lead); University of California, Berkeley; Eastern Washington University; University of Kansas; National Renewable Energy Laboratory; Journal ID: ISSN 2331-7019
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
Citation Formats
Finck, Benjamin Y., and Schwartz, Benjamin J. Drift-Diffusion Modeling of the Effects of Structural Disorder and Carrier Mobility on the Performance of Organic Photovoltaic Devices. United States: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevApplied.4.034006.
Finck, Benjamin Y., & Schwartz, Benjamin J. Drift-Diffusion Modeling of the Effects of Structural Disorder and Carrier Mobility on the Performance of Organic Photovoltaic Devices. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.4.034006
Finck, Benjamin Y., and Schwartz, Benjamin J. Mon .
"Drift-Diffusion Modeling of the Effects of Structural Disorder and Carrier Mobility on the Performance of Organic Photovoltaic Devices". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.4.034006. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1370220.
@article{osti_1370220,
title = {Drift-Diffusion Modeling of the Effects of Structural Disorder and Carrier Mobility on the Performance of Organic Photovoltaic Devices},
author = {Finck, Benjamin Y. and Schwartz, Benjamin J.},
abstractNote = {We probe the effects of structural disorder on the performance of organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices via drift-diffusion modeling. Here, we utilize ensembles of spatially disordered one-dimensional mobility profiles to approximate the three-dimensional structural disorder present in actual devices. Each replica in our ensemble approximates one high-conductivity pathway through the three-dimensional network(s) present in a polymer-based bulk heterojunction solar cell, so that the ensemble-averaged behavior provides a good approximation to a full three-dimensional structurally disordered device. Our calculations show that the short-circuit current, fill factor, and power conversion efficiency of simulated devices are all negatively impacted by the inclusion of structural disorder, but that the open-circuit voltage is nearly impervious to structural defects. This is in contrast to energetic disorder, where previous studies found that spatial variation in the energy in OPV active layers causes a decrease in the open-circuit voltage. We also show that structural disorder causes the greatest detriment to device performance for feature sizes between 2 and 10 nm. Since this is on the same length scale as the fullerene crystallites in experimental devices, it suggests both that controlling structural disorder is critical to the performance of OPV devices and that the effects of structural disorder should be included in future drift-diffusion modeling studies of organic solar cells.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevApplied.4.034006},
journal = {Physical Review Applied},
number = 3,
volume = 4,
place = {United States},
year = {Mon Sep 21 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Mon Sep 21 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 8 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Competition between Fullerene Aggregation and Poly(3-hexylthiophene) Crystallization upon Annealing of Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells
journal, July 2011
- Wu, Wei-Ru; Jeng, U-Ser; Su, Chun-Jen
- ACS Nano, Vol. 5, Issue 8
Effects of Additives on the Morphology of Solution Phase Aggregates Formed by Active Layer Components of High-Efficiency Organic Solar Cells
journal, December 2011
- Lou, Sylvia J.; Szarko, Jodi M.; Xu, Tao
- Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 133, Issue 51
Influence of Hole-Transport Layers and Donor Materials on Open-Circuit Voltage and Shape of I-V Curves of Organic Solar Cells
journal, April 2011
- Tress, Wolfgang; Leo, Karl; Riede, Moritz
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 21, Issue 11
A Conclusive View on Charge Generation, Recombination, and Extraction in As-Prepared and Annealed P3HT:PCBM Blends: Combined Experimental and Simulation Work
journal, January 2014
- Kniepert, Juliane; Lange, Ilja; van der Kaap, Niels J.
- Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 7
Nanosecond response of organic solar cells and photodiodes: Role of trap states
journal, May 2011
- Christ, Nico; Kettlitz, Siegfried W.; Züfle, Simon
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 19
Understanding Local and Macroscopic Electron Mobilities in the Fullerene Network of Conjugated Polymer-based Solar Cells: Time-Resolved Microwave Conductivity and Theory
journal, September 2013
- Aguirre, Jordan C.; Arntsen, Christopher; Hernandez, Samuel
- Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 24, Issue 6
Bimolecular Recombination in Organic Photovoltaics
journal, April 2014
- Lakhwani, Girish; Rao, Akshay; Friend, Richard H.
- Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 65, Issue 1
Controlling the Field-Effect Mobility of Regioregular Polythiophene by Changing the Molecular Weight
journal, September 2003
- Kline, R. J.; McGehee, M. D.; Kadnikova, E. N.
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 15, Issue 18
Two-dimensional charge transport in self-organized, high-mobility conjugated polymers
journal, October 1999
- Sirringhaus, H.; Brown, P. J.; Friend, R. H.
- Nature, Vol. 401, Issue 6754, p. 685-688
A charge carrier transport model for donor-acceptor blend layers
journal, January 2015
- Fischer, Janine; Widmer, Johannes; Kleemann, Hans
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 117, Issue 4
Effect of annealing of poly(3-hexylthiophene)/fullerene bulk heterojunction composites on structural and optical properties
journal, February 2006
- Zhokhavets, Uladzimir; Erb, Tobias; Hoppe, Harald
- Thin Solid Films, Vol. 496, Issue 2
Large-signal analysis of a silicon Read diode oscillator
journal, January 1969
- Scharfetter, D. L.; Gummel, H. K.
- IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 16, Issue 1
Exciton diffusion length in narrow bandgap polymers
journal, January 2012
- Mikhnenko, Oleksandr V.; Azimi, Hamed; Scharber, Markus
- Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 5, Issue 5
Translocation of C 60 and Its Derivatives Across a Lipid Bilayer
journal, March 2007
- Qiao, Rui; Roberts, Aaron P.; Mount, Andrew S.
- Nano Letters, Vol. 7, Issue 3
Carrier mobility of organic semiconductors based on current-voltage characteristics
journal, February 2010
- Wang, Z. B.; Helander, M. G.; Greiner, M. T.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 107, Issue 3
Origin of reduced polaron recombination in organic semiconductor devices
journal, August 2009
- Deibel, C.; Wagenpfahl, A.; Dyakonov, V.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 80, Issue 7
A self-consistent iterative scheme for one-dimensional steady state transistor calculations
journal, October 1964
- Gummel, H. K.
- IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices, Vol. 11, Issue 10
Modeling morphology evolution during solvent-based fabrication of organic solar cells
journal, April 2012
- Wodo, Olga; Ganapathysubramanian, Baskar
- Computational Materials Science, Vol. 55
Bimolecular recombination losses in polythiophene: Fullerene solar cells
journal, September 2008
- Shuttle, C. G.; O’Regan, B.; Ballantyne, A. M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 78, Issue 11
Optimum mobility, contact properties, and open-circuit voltage of organic solar cells: A drift-diffusion simulation study
journal, April 2012
- Tress, Wolfgang; Leo, Karl; Riede, Moritz
- Physical Review B, Vol. 85, Issue 15
Modeling photocurrent action spectra of photovoltaic devices based on organic thin films
journal, July 1999
- Pettersson, Leif A. A.; Roman, Lucimara S.; Inganäs, Olle
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 86, Issue 1, p. 487-496
Random vs regularized OPV: Limits of performance gain of organic bulk heterojunction solar cells by morphology engineering
journal, April 2012
- Ray, Biswajit; Alam, Muhammad A.
- Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 99
A polymer tandem solar cell with 10.6% power conversion efficiency
journal, February 2013
- You, Jingbi; Dou, Letian; Yoshimura, Ken
- Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Solution processible organic transistors and circuits based on a C70 methanofullerene
journal, September 2005
- Anthopoulos, Thomas D.; de Leeuw, Dago M.; Cantatore, Eugenio
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 98, Issue 5
Charge extraction and photocurrent in organic bulk heterojunction solar cells
journal, January 2012
- Petersen, Andreas; Kirchartz, Thomas; Wagner, Thomas A.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 85, Issue 4
Polymer Homo-Tandem Solar Cells with Best Efficiency of 11.3%
journal, January 2015
- Zhou, Huiqiong; Zhang, Yuan; Mai, Cheng-Kang
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 27, Issue 10
Organic solar cells: A new look at traditional models
journal, January 2011
- Servaites, Jonathan D.; Ratner, Mark A.; Marks, Tobin J.
- Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 4, Issue 11
Hole transport in polyfluorene-based sandwich-type devices: Quantitative analysis of the role of energetic disorder
journal, August 2008
- van Mensfoort, S. L. M.; Vulto, S. I. E.; Janssen, R. A. J.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 78, Issue 8
Reliable extraction of organic solar cell parameters by combining steady-state and transient techniques
journal, December 2012
- Neukom, M. T.; Züfle, S.; Ruhstaller, B.
- Organic Electronics, Vol. 13, Issue 12
A review of charge transport and recombination in polymer/fullerene organic solar cells
journal, January 2007
- Pivrikas, A.; Sariciftci, N. S.; Juška, G.
- Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications, Vol. 15, Issue 8
Drift-diffusion modeling of photocurrent transients in bulk heterojunction solar cells
journal, November 2009
- Hwang, Inchan; McNeill, Christopher R.; Greenham, Neil C.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 106, Issue 9
Control of Energy Transfer in Oriented Conjugated Polymer-Mesoporous Silica Composites
journal, April 2000
- Nguyen, T.
- Science, Vol. 288, Issue 5466
Three-Dimensional Nanoscale Organization of Bulk Heterojunction Polymer Solar Cells
journal, February 2009
- Bavel, Svetlana S. van; Sourty, Erwan; With, Gijsbertus de
- Nano Letters, Vol. 9, Issue 2
Modeling photocurrent transients in organic solar cells
journal, September 2008
- Hwang, I.; Greenham, N. C.
- Nanotechnology, Vol. 19, Issue 42
A Theoretical Study of the Charge Transfer Behavior of the Highly Regioregular Poly-3-hexylthiophene in the Ordered State
journal, November 2008
- Lan, Yi-Kang; Huang, Ching-I
- The Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol. 112, Issue 47
Imbalanced mobilities causing S-shaped IV curves in planar heterojunction organic solar cells
journal, February 2011
- Tress, Wolfgang; Petrich, Annette; Hummert, Markus
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 98, Issue 6
Field effect transistors based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) at different length scales
journal, March 2004
- Mas-Torrent, M.; Boer, D. den; Durkut, M.
- Nanotechnology, Vol. 15, Issue 4
Numerical simulation of charge transport in disordered organic semiconductor devices
journal, September 2010
- Knapp, E.; Häusermann, R.; Schwarzenbach, H. U.
- Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 108, Issue 5
Efficiency limiting factors of organic bulk heterojunction solar cells identified by electrical impedance spectroscopy
journal, March 2007
- Glatthaar, M.; Riede, M.; Keegan, N.
- Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 91, Issue 5
Simple experimental test to distinguish extraction and injection barriers at the electrodes of (organic) solar cells with S-shaped current–voltage characteristics
journal, October 2013
- Tress, Wolfgang; Inganäs, Olle
- Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, Vol. 117
Improving the Reproducibility of P3HT:PCBM Solar Cells by Controlling the PCBM/Cathode Interface
journal, October 2009
- Tremolet de Villers, Bertrand; Tassone, Christopher J.; Tolbert, Sarah H.
- The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 113, Issue 44
Relationship between energetic disorder and open-circuit voltage in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells
journal, August 2011
- Blakesley, James C.; Neher, Dieter
- Physical Review B, Vol. 84, Issue 7
The relative importance of domain size, domain purity and domain interfaces to the performance of bulk-heterojunction organic photovoltaics
journal, January 2012
- Lyons, Benjamin P.; Clarke, Nigel; Groves, Chris
- Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 5, Issue 6
Understanding the origin of the S-curve in conjugated polymer/fullerene photovoltaics from drift-diffusion simulations
journal, July 2013
- Finck, B. Y.; Schwartz, B. J.
- Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 5
Beyond Langevin Recombination: How Equilibrium Between Free Carriers and Charge Transfer States Determines the Open-Circuit Voltage of Organic Solar Cells
journal, April 2015
- Burke, Timothy M.; Sweetnam, Sean; Vandewal, Koen
- Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 5, Issue 11
Extracting Microscopic Device Parameters from Transient Photocurrent Measurements of P3HT:PCBM Solar Cells
journal, March 2012
- MacKenzie, Roderick C. I.; Shuttle, Christopher G.; Chabinyc, Michael L.
- Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 6
Modeling the current-voltage characteristics of bilayer polymer photovoltaic devices
journal, February 2003
- Barker, J. A.; Ramsdale, C. M.; Greenham, N. C.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 67, Issue 7
Recombination via tail states in polythiophene:fullerene solar cells
journal, March 2011
- Kirchartz, Thomas; Pieters, Bart E.; Kirkpatrick, James
- Physical Review B, Vol. 83, Issue 11
“Columnlike” Structure of the Cross-Sectional Morphology of Bulk Heterojunction Materials
journal, January 2009
- Moon, Ji Sun; Lee, Jae Kwan; Cho, Shinuk
- Nano Letters, Vol. 9, Issue 1
Charge injection and recombination at the metal–organic interface
journal, January 1999
- Scott, J. Campbell; Malliaras, George G.
- Chemical Physics Letters, Vol. 299, Issue 2
Charge carrier recombination in organic solar cells
journal, December 2013
- Proctor, Christopher M.; Kuik, Martijn; Nguyen, Thuc-Quyen
- Progress in Polymer Science, Vol. 38, Issue 12
S-shaped current-voltage characteristics of organic solar devices
journal, September 2010
- Wagenpfahl, A.; Rauh, D.; Binder, M.
- Physical Review B, Vol. 82, Issue 11