Solvent polarity and nanoscale morphology in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells: A case study

Thomas, Ajith and Tom, Anju Elsa and Rao, Arun D and Varman, Arul and Ranjith, K and Vinayakan, R and Ramamurthy, Praveen C and Ison, VV (2014) Solvent polarity and nanoscale morphology in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells: A case study. In: JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS, 115 (10).

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Abstract

Organic bulk heterojunction solar cells were fabricated under identical experimental conditions, except by varying the solvent polarity used for spin coating the active layer components and their performance was evaluated systematically. Results showed that presence of nitrobenzene-chlorobenzene composition governs the morphology of active layer formed, which is due to the tuning of solvent polarity as well as the resulting solubility of the P3HT:PCBM blend. Trace amount of nitrobenzene favoured the formation of better organised P3HT domains, as evident from conductive AFM, tapping mode AFM and surface, and cross-sectional SEM analysis. The higher interfacial surface area thus generated produced cells with high efficiency. But, an increase in the nitrobenzene composition leads to a decrease in cell performance, which is due to the formation of an active layer with larger size polymer domain networks with poor charge separation possibility. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	JOURNAL OF APPLIED PHYSICS
Publisher:	AMER INST PHYSICS
Additional Information:	Copyright for this article belongs to the AMER INST PHYSICS, USA
Department/Centre:	Division of Mechanical Sciences > Materials Engineering (formerly Metallurgy)
Date Deposited:	22 May 2014 05:14
Last Modified:	22 May 2014 05:15
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/48980

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