| 1. |
- Bergqvist, Jonas, et al.
(författare)
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Sub-glass transition annealing enhances polymer solar cell performance
- 2014
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Ingår i: Journal of Materials Chemistry A. - : Royal Society of Chemistry. - 2050-7488. ; 2:17, s. 6146-6152
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Thermal annealing of non-crystalline polymer: fullerene blends typically results in a drastic decrease in solar cell performance. In particular aggressive annealing above the glass transition temperature results in a detrimental coarsening of the blend nanostructure. We demonstrate that mild annealing below the glass transition temperature is a viable avenue to control the nanostructure of a non-crystalline thiophene-quinoxaline copolymer: fullerene blend. Direct imaging methods indicate that coarsening of the blend nanostructure can be avoided. However, a combination of absorption and luminescence spectroscopy reveals that local changes in the polymer conformation as well as limited fullerene aggregation are permitted to occur. As a result, we are able to optimise the solar cell performance evenly across different positions of the coated area, which is a necessary criterion for large-scale, high throughput production.
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| 2. |
- Gedefaw, Desta Antenehe, 1971, et al.
(författare)
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Conjugated polymers with polar side chains in bulk heterojunction solar cell devices
- 2014
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Ingår i: Polymer International. - : Wiley. - 1097-0126 .- 0959-8103. ; 63:1, s. 22-30
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Two polymers with polar side chains, namely poly[2,7-(9,9-dioctylfluorene)-alt-5,5-(5',8'-di-2-thienyl-(2',3'-bis(3''-(2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethoxy)phenyl)quinoxaline))] (P1) and poly[2,7-(9,9-bis(2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethyl)fluorene)-alt-5,5-(5',8'-di-2-thienyl-(2',3'-bis(3''-(2-(2-methoxyethoxy)-ethoxy)phenyl)quinoxaline))] (P2), were synthesized for solar cell application. A series of bulk heterojunction solar cells were systematically fabricated and characterized by varying the electron-acceptor materials, processing solvents and thickness of the active layer. The results show that P1, with a higher molecular weight and good film-forming properties, performed better. The best device showed an open circuit voltage of 0.87 V, a short circuit current of 6.81 mA cm(-2) and a power conversion efficiency of 2.74% with 1:4 polymer:[6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM[70]) mixture using o-dichlorobenzene (o-DCB) as processing solvent. P2 on the other hand showed a poorer performance with chlorobenzene as processing solvent, but a much improved performance was obtained using o-DCB instead. Thus, an open circuit voltage of 0.80 V, short circuit current of 6.21 mA cm(-2) and an overall power conversion efficiency of 2.22% were recorded for a polymer:PCBM[70] mixing ratio of 1:4. This is presumably due to the improvement of the morphology of the active layer using o-DCB as processing solvent. (c) 2013 Society of Chemical Industry
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| 3. |
- Ma, Zaifei, et al.
(författare)
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A Facile Method to Enhance Photovoltaic Performance of Benzodithiophene-Isoindigo Polymers by Inserting Bithiophene Spacer
- 2014
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Ingår i: Advanced Energy Materials. - : Wiley. - 1614-6840 .- 1614-6832. ; 4:6, s. Art. no. 1301455-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study describes the synthesis and characterization of four polymers based on benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene (BDT) and isoindigo with zero, one, two, and three thiophene spacer groups. Results have demonstrated that the use of bithiophene as a spacer unit improves the geometry of the polymer chain, making it planar, and hence, potentially enhanced π- π stacking occurs. Due to favorable interaction of the polymer chains, enhanced absorption coefficient, and optimal morphology, PBDT-BTI, which possesses bithiophene as a spacer, revealed high current and fill factor leading to a power conversion efficiency of 7.3% in devices, making this polymer the best performing isoindigo-based material in polymer solar cells (PSCs). Also, PBDT-BTI could still maintain efficiency of over 6% with the active layer thickness of 270 nm, making it a potential candidate for a material in printed PSCs. These results demonstrate that the use of thiophene spacers in D-A polymers could be an important design strategy to produce high-performance PSCs.
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| 4. |
- Ma, Zaifei, et al.
(författare)
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Influences of Surface Roughness of ZnO Electron Transport Layer on the Photovoltaic Performance of Organic Inverted Solar Cells
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Physical Chemistry C. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1932-7447 .- 1932-7455. ; 116:46, s. 24462-24468
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Here, we demonstrate the correlation between the surface roughness of the ZnO interlayer used as an electron transporting interlayer (ETL) in organic inverted solar cells (ISCs) and the photovoltaic performance of the ISCs. Three different surfaces of the ZnO ETL are studied in ISCs with the polymer poly[2,3-bis-(3-octyloxyphenyl)-quinoxaline-5,8-diyl-alt-thiophene-2,5-d iyl] (TQ1) mixed with [6,6]-phenyl C71 butyric acid methyl ester (PC71BM) as the active layer. The results obtained from these ISCs show that power conversion efficiency increases from 2.7% to 3.9% when the root-mean-square roughness of the ZnO layer decreases from 48 to 1.9 nm. Moreover, it is found that the short-circuit current density is higher in the ISC based on the smoother ZnO interlayer, with a larger donor/acceptor (D/A) interfacial area in the active layer that facilitates exciton dissociation. The reduced effective interfacial area between the photoactive layer and the ZnO interlayer with decreased ZnO surface roughness leads to an observed improvement in both fill factor and open circuit voltage, which is ascribed to a reduced concentration of traps at the interface between the ZnO interlayer and the active layer.
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| 5. |
- Ma, Zaifei, et al.
(författare)
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Structure-Property Relationships of Oligothiophene-Isoindigo Polymers for Efficient Bulk-Heterojunction Solar Cells
- 2014
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Ingår i: energy and environmental science. - : Royal Society of Chemistry. - 1754-5692. ; 17:1, s. 361-369
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A series of alternating oligothiophene (nT)-isoindigo (I) copolymers (PnTI) were synthesized to investigate the influence of the oligothiophene block length on the photovoltaic (PV) properties of PnTI:PCBM bulk-heterojunction blends. Our study indicates that the number of thiophene rings (n) in the repeating unit alters both, polymer crystallinity and polymer-fullerene interfacial energetics, which results in a decreasing open-circuit voltage (Voc) of the solar cells with increasing n. The short-circuit current density (Jsc) of P1TI:PCBM devices is limited by the absence of a significant driving force for electron transfer. Instead, blends based on P5TI and P6TI feature large polymer domains, which limit charge generation and thus Jsc. The best PV performance with a power conversion efficiency of up to 6.9% was achieved with devices based on P3TI, where a combination of favorable morphology and optimal interface energy level offset ensures efficient exciton separation and charge generation. The structure-property relationship demonstrated in this work is a valuable guideline for the design of high performance polymers with small energy losses during the charge generation process, allowing for the fabrication of efficient solar cells that combine a minimal loss in Voc with a high Jsc.
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| 6. |
- Ma, Zaifei, 1986-
(författare)
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Studies of Morphology and Charge-Transfer in Bulk-Heterojunction Polymer Solar Cells
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The work presented in this thesis focuses on the two critical issues of bulk-heterojunction polymer solar cells: morphology of active layers and energy loss during charge transfer process at electron donor/acceptor interfaces. Both issues determine the performance of polymer solar cells through governing exciton dissociation, charge carrier recombination and free charge carrier transport.The morphology of active layers (spatial percolation of the donor and acceptor) is crucial for the performance of polymer solar cells due to the limited diffusion length of excitons in organic semiconductors (5-20 nm). Meanwhile, the trade-off between charge generation and transport also needs to be considered. On the one hand, a finely mixed morphology with a large donor/acceptor interface area is preferred for charge generation because efficient exciton dissociation only occurs at the interface, but on the other hand, proper phase separation is needed to reduce charge carrier recombination and facilitate free charge carrier transport to the electrodes. In this thesis, morphologies of the active layers based on different polymeric donors and fullerene acceptors are correlated to the performance of solar cells with various microscopic and spectroscopic techniques including atomic force microscope, transmission electron microscope, grazing incidence x-ray diffraction, photoluminescence, electroluminescence and Fourier transform photocurrent spectroscopy. Furthermore, methods to manipulate the morphologies of solution processed active layers to achieve high performance solar cells are also presented. Processing solvents, chemical structures of the donor and the acceptor materials, and substrate surface properties are found critically important in determining the nanoscale phase separation and performance of polymer solar cells.Optimizing morphology of active layers alone does not guarantee high performance devices. In addition to spatial percolation, energy arrangements of donors and acceptors are also essential due to contrary requests of the photocurrent and the photovoltage: Efficient exciton dissociation or charge transfer at donor/acceptor interfaces requires large enough energetic driving force, which is also known as energy loss for charge transfer. However, the energy loss due to charge transfer will unavoidably reduce the photovoltage. In this thesis the balance between the photocurrent and the photovoltage in polymer solar cells due to charge transfer at donor/acceptor interfaces is investigated for different active material systems. The driving force tuned by synthesizing series of polymers is determined by directly measuring the optical band gap via UV-Vis spectroscopy and probing the charge transfer recombination via electroluminescence measurements. Influences of driving force on the photocurrent and the photovoltage are characterized via field dependent photoluminescence and internal quantum efficiency measurements. The results correlated well with the performance of the solar cells.
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| 7. |
- Ma, Zaifei, et al.
(författare)
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Synthesis and characterization of benzodithiophene-isoindigo polymers for solar cells
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Materials Chemistry. - : Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). - 1364-5501 .- 0959-9428. ; 22:5, s. 2306-2314
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Three new alternating polymers with the electron-deficient isoindigo group as the acceptor unit and benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b'] dithiophene (BDT) or BDT flanked by thiophenes (or octylthiophenes) as the donor unit were designed and synthesized. All the polymers have good thermal stability, solubility and broad absorption spectra. Their photophysical, electrochemical and photovoltaic (PV) properties were investigated. To understand their different PV performance in the resulting polymer solar cells (PSCs), the morphology of their blends with fullerene derivatives was investigated by atomic force microscopy, and the molecular geometries as well as the molecular frontier orbitals were simulated by density functional theory calculations (Gaussian 09). The polymer PBDT-TIT, with BDT flanked by thiophenes as the donor unit and isoindigo as the acceptor unit, exhibits quite planar backbones and its blend with fullerene derivatives shows optimal morphology. As a result, the PSCs based on PBDT-TIT with a conventional device configuration of ITO/PEDOT: PSS/PBDT-TIT: PC(61)BM/LiF/Al showed a power conversion efficiency of 4.22%, with a short-circuit current density of 7.87 mA cm(-2), an open-circuit voltage of 0.79 V and a fill factor of 0.68 under the AM 1.5G illumination with an intensity of 100 mW cm(-2) from a solar simulator.
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| 8. |
- Tang, Zheng, et al.
(författare)
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Semi-Transparent Tandem Organic Solar Cells with 90% Internal Quantum Efficiency
- 2012
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Ingår i: Advanced Energy Materials. - : Wiley. - 1614-6840 .- 1614-6832. ; 2:12, s. 1467-1476
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Semi-transparent (ST) organic solar cells with potential application as power generating windows are studied. The main challenge is to find proper transparent electrodes with desired electrical and optical properties. In this work, this is addressed by employing an amphiphilic conjugated polymer PFPA-1 modified ITO coated glass substrate as the ohmic electron-collecting cathode and PEDOT:PSS PH1000 as the hole-collecting anode. For active layers based on different donor polymers, considerably lower reflection and parasitic absorption are found in the ST solar cells as compared to solar cells in the standard geometry with an ITO/PEDOT:PSS anode and a LiF/Al cathode. The ST solar cells have remarkably high internal quantum efficiency at short circuit condition (similar to 90%) and high transmittance (similar to 50%). Hence, efficient ST tandem solar cells with enhanced power conversion efficiency (PCE) compared to a single ST solar cell can be constructed by connecting the stacked two ST sub-cells in parallel. The total loss of photons by reflection, parasitic absorption and transmission in the ST tandem solar cell can be smaller than the loss in a standard solar cell based on the same active materials. We demonstrate this by stacking five separately prepared ST cells on top of each other, to obtain a higher photocurrent than in an optimized standard solar cell.
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| 9. |
- Vandewal, Koen, et al.
(författare)
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Quantification of Quantum Efficiency and Energy Losses in Low Bandgap Polymer:Fullerene Solar Cells with High Open-Circuit Voltage
- 2012
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Ingår i: Advanced Functional Materials. - : Wiley-VCH Verlag Berlin. - 1616-301X .- 1616-3028. ; 22:16, s. 3480-3490
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In organic solar cells based on polymer:fullerene blends, energy is lost due to electron transfer from polymer to fullerene. Minimizing the difference between the energy of the polymer exciton (ED*) and the energy of the charge transfer state (ECT) will optimize the open-circuit voltage (Voc). In this work, this energy loss ED*-ECT is measured directly via Fourier-transform photocurrent spectroscopy and electroluminescence measurements. Polymer:fullerene photovoltaic devices comprising two different isoindigo containing polymers: P3TI and PTI-1, are studied. Even though the chemical structures and the optical gaps of P3TI and PTI-1 are similar (1.4 eV1.5 eV), the optimized photovoltaic devices show large differences in Voc and internal quantum efficiency (IQE). For P3TI:PC71BM blends a ED*-ECT of similar to 0.1 eV, a Voc of 0.7 V and an IQE of 87% are found. For PTI-1:PC61BM blends an absence of sub-gap charge transfer absorption and emission bands is found, indicating almost no energy loss in the electron transfer step. Hence a higher Voc of 0.92 V, but low IQE of 45% is obtained. Morphological studies and field dependent photoluminescence quenching indicate that the lower IQE for the PTI-1 system is not due to a too coarse morphology, but is related to interfacial energetics. Losses between ECT and qVoc due to radiative and non-radiative recombination are quantified for both material systems, indicating that for the PTI-1:PC61BM material system, Voc can only be increased by decreasing the non-radiative recombination pathways. This work demonstrates the possibility of obtaining modestly high IQE values for material systems with a small energy offset (andlt;0.1 eV) and a high Voc.
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| 10. |
- Wang, Ergang, 1981, et al.
(författare)
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An Easily Accessible Isoindigo-Based Polymer for High-Performance Polymer Solar Cells
- 2011
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Ingår i: Journal of the American Chemical Society. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1520-5126 .- 0002-7863. ; 133:36, s. 14244-14247
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- A new, low-band-gap alternating copolymer consisting of terthiophene and isoindigo has been designed and synthesized. Solar cells based on this polymer and PC(71)BM show a power conversion efficiency of 6.3%, which is a record for polymer solar cells based on a polymer with an optical band gap below 1.5 eV. This work demonstrates the great potential of isoindigo moieties as electron-deficient units for building donor-acceptor-type polymers for high-performance polymer solar cells.
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