Tuning domain size and crystallinity in isoindigo/PCBM organic solar cells via solution shearing

Gu, Kevin L.; Zhou, Yan; Gu, Xiaodan; Yan, Hongping; Diao, Ying; Kurosawa, Tadanori; Ganapathysubramanian, Baskar; Toney, Michael F.; Bao, Zhenan

doi:10.1016/j.orgel.2016.10.033

Title: Tuning domain size and crystallinity in isoindigo/PCBM organic solar cells via solution shearing

Journal Article · Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Organic Electronics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgel.2016.10.033· OSTI ID:1361161

^[1]; Zhou, Yan ^[1]; Gu, Xiaodan ^[2]; Yan, Hongping ^[2]; Diao, Ying ^[3]; Kurosawa, Tadanori ^[1]; Ganapathysubramanian, Baskar ^[4]; Toney, Michael F. ^[5];

^[1]

Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL (United States)
Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (United States)
SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Despite having achieved the long sought-after performance of 10% power conversion efficiency, high performance organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are still mostly constrained to lab scale devices fabricated by spin coating. Efforts to produce printed OPVs lag considerably behind, and the sensitivity to different fabrication methods highlights the need to develop a comprehensive understanding of the processing-morphology relationship in printing methods. Here we present a systematic experimental investigation of a model low bandgap polymer/fullerene system, poly-isoindigo thienothiophene/PC₆₁BM, using a lab-scale analogue to roll-to-roll coating as the fabrication tool in order to understand the impact of processing parameters on morphological evolution. We report that domain size and polymer crystallinity can be tuned by a factor of two by controlling the temperature and coating speed. Lower fabrication temperature simultaneously decreased the phase separation domain size and increased the relative degree of crystallinity in those domains, leading to improved photocurrent. We conclude that domain size in isoindigo/PCBM is dictated by spontaneous phase separation rather than crystal nucleation and growth. Moreover we present a model to describe the temperature dependence of domain size formation in our system, which demonstrates that morphology is not necessarily strictly dependent on the evaporation rate, but rather on the interplay between evaporation and diffusion during the printing process.

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Research Organization:: SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)

Grant/Contract Number:: N00014-14-1-0142; 1434799; 1435587; 1149365; AC02-05CH11231; AC02-76SF00515

OSTI ID:: 1361161

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1398694

Journal Information:: Organic Electronics, Vol. 40, Issue C; ISSN 1566-1199

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 16 works

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37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
14 SOLAR ENERGY
Organic photovoltaics
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X-ray scattering

Title: Tuning domain size and crystallinity in isoindigo/PCBM organic solar cells via solution shearing

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