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Interface-engineering additives of poly(oxyethylene tridecyl ether) for low-band gap polymer solar cells consisting of PCDTBT:PCBM70 bulk-heterojunction layers

Yoon Ho Huh and Byoungchoo Park

Open Access Open Access

Abstract

We herein report on the improved photovoltaic (PV) effects of using a polymer bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) layer that consists of a low-band gap electron donor polymer of poly(N-9'-heptadecanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4',7'-di-2-thienyl-2',1',3′-benzothiadiazole)) (PCDTBT) and an acceptor of [6,6]-phenyl C71 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM70), doped with an interface-engineering surfactant additive of poly(oxyethylene tridecyl ether) (PTE). The presence of an interface-engineering additive in the PV layer results in excellent performance; the addition of PTE to a PCDTBT:PCBM70 system produces a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.0%, which is much higher than that of a reference device without the additive (4.9%). We attribute this improvement to an increased charge carrier lifetime, which is likely to be the result of the presence of PTE molecules oriented at the interfaces between the BHJ PV layer and the anode and cathode, as well as at the interfaces between the phase-separated BHJ domains. Our results suggest that the incorporation of the PTE interface-engineering additive in the PCDTBT:PCBM70 PV layer results in a functional composite system that shows considerable promise for use in efficient polymer BHJ PV cells.

©2012 Optical Society of America

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Figures (7)
Fig. 1
Fig. 1 (a) Schematics of the structure of the PSC studied, which incorporates a PCDTBT:PCBM70 layer with a PTE interface-engineering additive; PCDTBT:PCBM70:PTE. (b) Device structures of the model PSC device investigated, which incorporates stacked PV layers with an ultrathin PTE interlayer; PCDTBT/PTE/PCBM70 (stacked PSC). (c) Left: Energy band diagram for the PSCs studied. Right: Chemical structures of the materials used.

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Fig. 2
Fig. 2 (a) The J-V characteristics of BHJ PSCs with and without the PTE additive. (b) IPCE spectra of PCDTBT:PCBM70 PSCs with and without the PTE additive.

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Fig. 3
Fig. 3 (a) UV-vis absorption spectra of PCDTBT:PCBM70, with and without the PTE additive. (b) XRD spectra of PCDTBT:PCBM70 with and without the PTE additive. The black curve shows the XRD spectra for an annealed P3HT: PCBM60 BHJ PV layer. (c) 3-D topographical AFM images for PCDTBT:PCBM70 and PCDTBT:PCBM70:PTE films, before and after thermal annealing.

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Fig. 4
Fig. 4 Double logarithmic plots of the electron (a) and hole (b) TOF photocurrent transients measured at E = 9.4 × 10 5 V/cm for the PCDTBT:PCBM70 BHJ PV layers with and without the PTE additive.

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Fig. 5
Fig. 5 Water drops on the surfaces of pure PCDTBT, pure PCBM70, PTE-mixed PCDTBT, and PTE-mixed PCBM70 films.

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Fig. 6
Fig. 6 Representative J-V curves of the stacked (bilayer) PSC with the PCDTBT and PCBM70 layers (PCDTBT/PCBM70), together with the representative J-V curves for the stacked PSC with the PTE interlayer between the PCDTBT and the PCBM70 layers (PCDTBT/PTE/PCBM70) in the dark (a) and under illumination (b).

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Fig. 7
Fig. 7 (a) Normalized TPV decay signals for the BHJ PSCs with and without PTE additive, under VOC = 0.85 V. Solid curves show the least-squares fits. Inset shows carrier lifetimes as a function of VOC for the BHJ PSCs studied. The solid lines show the linear least-squares fits. (b) Photocurrent as a function of VEFF, for the BHJ PSCs, under illumination. The solid curves represent the theoretical JPH values.

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Tables (1)

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Table 1 Average photovoltaic performances of the PSCs studied.

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