Photobleaching dynamics in small molecule vs.  polymer organic photovoltaic blends with 1,7-bis-trifluoromethylfullerene

Garner, Logan E.; Nellissery Viswanathan, Vinila; Arias, Dylan H.; Brook, Colin P.; Christensen, Steven T.; Ferguson, Andrew J.; Kopidakis, Nikos; Larson, Bryon W.; Owczarczyk, Zbyslaw R.; Pfeilsticker, Jason R.; Ramamurthy, Praveen C.; Strauss, Steven H.; Boltalina, Olga V.; Braunecker, Wade A.

doi:10.1039/C7TA10995D

Title: Photobleaching dynamics in small molecule vs. polymer organic photovoltaic blends with 1,7-bis-trifluoromethylfullerene

Journal Article · Tue Feb 27 00:00:00 EST 2018 · Journal of Materials Chemistry. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1039/C7TA10995D· OSTI ID:1424579

Garner, Logan E. ^[1];

^[2];

^[1];

^[3]; Christensen, Steven T. ^[1];

^[1]; Kopidakis, Nikos ^[1];

^[1]; Owczarczyk, Zbyslaw R. ^[1];

^[1]; Ramamurthy, Praveen C. ^[2];

^[3];

^[1]

National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Indian Inst. of Science, Bangalore (India)
Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States)

Two organic photovoltaic (OPV) donor materials (one polymer and one small molecule) are synthesized from the same constituent building blocks, namely thiophene units, cyclopentathiophene dione (CTD), and cyclopentadithiophene (CPDT). Photobleaching dynamics of these donor materials are then studied under white light illumination in air with blends of PC₇₀BM and the bistrifluoromethylfullerene 1,7-C₆₀(CF₃)₂. For both the polymer and small molecule blends, C₆₀(CF₃)₂ stabilizes the initial rate of photobleaching by a factor of 15 relative to PC70BM. However, once the small molecule:C₆₀(CF₃)₂ blend bleaches to ~80% of its initial optical density, the rate of photobleaching dramatically accelerates, which is not observed in the analagous polymer blend. We probe that phenomenon using time-resovled photoluminescence (TRPL) to measure PL quenching efficiencies at defined intervals during the photobleaching experiments. The data indicates the small molecule donor and C₆₀(CF₃)₂ acceptor significantly de-mix with time, after which the blend begins to bleach at approximately the same rate as the neat donor sample. The work suggests that perfluoroalkylfullerenes have great potential to stabilize certain OPV active layers toward photodegradation, provided their morphology is stable.

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Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Renewable Power Office. Solar Energy Technologies Office

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 1424579

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5900-70695; JMCAET; TRN: US1801925

Journal Information:: Journal of Materials Chemistry. A, Vol. 6, Issue 11; ISSN 2050-7488

Publisher:: Royal Society of ChemistryCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 14 works

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