413 research outputs found
Semiconducting Monolayer Materials as a Tunable Platform for Excitonic Solar Cells
The recent advent of two-dimensional monolayer materials with tunable
optoelectronic properties and high carrier mobility offers renewed
opportunities for efficient, ultra-thin excitonic solar cells alternative to
those based on conjugated polymer and small molecule donors. Using
first-principles density functional theory and many-body calculations, we
demonstrate that monolayers of hexagonal BN and graphene (CBN) combined with
commonly used acceptors such as PCBM fullerene or semiconducting carbon
nanotubes can provide excitonic solar cells with tunable absorber gap,
donor-acceptor interface band alignment, and power conversion efficiency, as
well as novel device architectures. For the case of CBN-PCBM devices, we
predict the limit of power conversion efficiencies to be in the 10 - 20% range
depending on the CBN monolayer structure. Our results demonstrate the
possibility of using monolayer materials in tunable, efficient, polymer-free
thin-film solar cells in which unexplored exciton and carrier transport regimes
are at play.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Triplet Exciton Generation in Bulk-Heterojunction Solar Cells based on Endohedral Fullerenes
Organic bulk-heterojunctions (BHJ) and solar cells containing the trimetallic
nitride endohedral fullerene 1-[3-(2-ethyl)hexoxy
carbonyl]propyl-1-phenyl-Lu3N@C80 (Lu3N@C80-PCBEH) show an open circuit voltage
(VOC) 0.3 V higher than similar devices with [6,6]-phenyl-C[61]-butyric acid
methyl ester (PC61BM). To fully exploit the potential of this acceptor molecule
with respect to the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of solar cells, the short
circuit current (JSC) should be improved to become competitive with the state
of the art solar cells. Here, we address factors influencing the JSC in blends
containing the high voltage absorber Lu3N@C80-PCBEH in view of both
photogeneration but also transport and extraction of charge carriers. We apply
optical, charge carrier extraction, morphology, and spin-sensitive techniques.
In blends containing Lu3N@C80-PCBEH, we found 2 times weaker photoluminescence
quenching, remainders of interchain excitons, and, most remarkably, triplet
excitons formed on the polymer chain, which were absent in the reference
P3HT:PC61BM blends. We show that electron back transfer to the triplet state
along with the lower exciton dissociation yield due to intramolecular charge
transfer in Lu3N@C80-PCBEH are responsible for the reduced photocurrent
11.4% Efficiency non-fullerene polymer solar cells with trialkylsilyl substituted 2D-conjugated polymer as donor
Simutaneously high open circuit voltage and high short circuit current density is a big challenge for achieving high efficiency polymer solar cells due to the excitonic nature of organic semdonductors. Herein, we developed a trialkylsilyl substituted 2D-conjugated polymer with the highest occupied molecular orbital level down-shifted by Si-C bond interaction. The polymer solar cells obtained by pairing this polymer with a non-fullerene acceptor demonstrated a high power conversion efficiency of 11.41% with both high open circuit voltage of 0.94 V and high short circuit current density of 17.32 mA cm(-2) benefitted from the complementary absorption of the donor and acceptor, and the high hole transfer efficiency from acceptor to donor although the highest occupied molecular orbital level difference between the donor and acceptor is only 0.11 eV. The results indicate that the alkylsilyl substitution is an effective way in designing high performance conjugated polymer photovoltaic materials.open
Comparative indoor and outdoor stability measurements of polymer based solar cells
We report comparative indoor and outdoor stability testing of organic solar cells based on a blend between a donor-acceptor polyfluorene copolymer and a fullerene derivative. The outdoor testing was conducted for a period over 12,000âhours in Sheffield, England, with a Ts80 lifetime determined in excess of 10,000âhours (420 days). Indoor lifetime testing was performed on solar cells using a solar simulator under a constant irradiance of 1000âW/m(2) for more than 650âhours. We show that under the conditions explored here, device degradation under the two sets of conditions is approximately dependent on the absorbed optical energy dose
Nanocarbon-Based photovoltaics
Carbon materials are excellent candidates for photovoltaic solar cells: they
are Earth-abundant, possess high optical absorption, and superior thermal and
photostability. Here we report on solar cells with active layers made solely of
carbon nanomaterials that present the same advantages of conjugated
polymer-based solar cells - namely solution processable, potentially flexible,
and chemically tunable - but with significantly increased photostability and
the possibility to revert photodegradation. The device active layer composition
is optimized using ab-initio density functional theory calculations to predict
type-II band alignment and Schottky barrier formation. The best device
fabricated is composed of PC70BM fullerene, semiconducting single-walled carbon
nanotubes and reduced graphene oxide. It achieves a power conversion efficiency
of 1.3% - a record for solar cells based on carbon as the active material - and
shows significantly improved lifetime than a polymer-based device. We calculate
efficiency limits of up to 13% for the devices fabricated in this work,
comparable to those predicted for polymer solar cells. There is great promise
for improving carbon-based solar cells considering the novelty of this type of
device, the superior photostability, and the availability of a large number of
carbon materials with yet untapped potential for photovoltaics. Our results
indicate a new strategy for efficient carbon-based, solution-processable, thin
film, photostable solar cells
Space Charge at Nanoscale: Probing Injection and Dynamic Phenomena Under Dark/Light Configurations by Using KPFM and C-AFM
International audienc
Electronic Structure and Transition Energies in PolymerâFullerene Bulk Heterojunctions
© 2014 American Chemical Society. Photocurrent spectroscopy is used to measure both the charge transfer and exciton optical absorption spectra of various bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. The energy difference between the polymer HOMO energy and the fullerene LUMO energy is obtained from the spectra, along with the disorder energy. Combining information from cells with several different polymers and fullerenes allows measurements of the energy differences between HOMO or LUMO energies for about 10 different polymers and fullerenes, with an estimated uncertainty of 50 meV. Heterojunction band offsets are obtained for the various cells, distinguishing between the excitonic and the single-carrier band offsets. The cell open-circuit voltage is shown to be closely correlated with the interface band gap. The exciton disorder energy is directly correlated to the band-tail disorder and we also consider the effects of exciton thermalization on the charge generation mechanism. The data indicate that an energy offset between the polymer exciton and the charge transfer ground state below about 0.25 eV adversely affects the cell performance, while a HOMO band offset below about 0.2-0.3 eV also degrades cell performance but by a different mechanism
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