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Small- and Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering Characterization of Bulk Heterojunction Polymer Solar Cells with Different Fullerene Derivatives

The aim of this study is to quantitatively investigate the effect of different fullerene type (PC60BM and PC70BM) on various morphological structures and power conversion efficiency (PCE) in the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) P3HT/PC x BM solar cells. The solar cells are fabricated by spin coating withou...

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Published in:Journal of physical chemistry. C 2012-05, Vol.116 (18), p.10238-10244
Main Authors: Huang, Yu-Ching, Tsao, Cheng-Si, Chuang, Chih-Min, Lee, Chia-Hsin, Hsu, Fan-Hsuan, Cha, Hou-Chin, Chen, Charn-Ying, Lin, Tsung-Han, Su, Chun-Jen, Jeng, U-Ser, Su, Wei-Fang
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Language:English
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Summary:The aim of this study is to quantitatively investigate the effect of different fullerene type (PC60BM and PC70BM) on various morphological structures and power conversion efficiency (PCE) in the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) P3HT/PC x BM solar cells. The solar cells are fabricated by spin coating without thermal annealing. The quantitative investigations of three-dimensional self-organized nanostructures are performed by using combined grazing-incidence small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering technique (GISAXS/GIWAXS). Two types of nanostructures are observed due to the phase separation in the BHJ films during the processing. They include (1) intercalated PC x BM molecules around boundary of P3HT crystalline domain and within amorphous domain and (2) aggregated PC x BM clusters in PC x BM domains. The lamellar spacing of P3HT crystalline domains in P3HT/PC70BM is larger than that in P3HT/PC60BM. This result indicates more interfacial areas are generated between PC70BM and P3HT at the molecular scale for more efficient charge separation. On the other hand, the size, volume fraction, partial attachment, and spatial distribution of PC60BM clusters are larger than that of PC70BM clusters, which reveals more efficient electron transport in P3HT/PC60BM. We deduce the correlation between nanostructures and PCE (3.25% and 2.64%, respectively, for P3HT/PC70BM and P3HT/PC60BM). The structure of fullerene intercalated with P3HT rather than the size of fullerene cluster plays a major role in the PCE performance of BHJ solar cell without thermal annealing.
ISSN:1932-7447
1932-7455
DOI:10.1021/jp210140j