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Composition and annealing effects in polythiophene/fullerene solar cells

  • Photovoltaic Materials and Phenomena Scell-2004
  • Published:
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Abstract

We have fabricated organic solar cells with blends of regioregular poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and 1-(3-methoxycarbonyl)-propyl-1-phenyl-(6,6)C61 (PCBM) as electron donor and electron acceptor, respectively. Blend composition and device annealing effects were investigated with optical absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy, photocurrent spectroscopy, and current-voltage characteristic measurements on devices under monochromatic or air mass (AM) 1.5 simulated solar light illumination. The highest efficiency was achieved for the 1:1 (P3HT:PCBM) weight ratio composition. The good performance is attributed to an optimized morphology that enables close intermolecular packing of P3HT chains. Inferior performance for the 1:2 composition is attributed to poorer intermolecular packing with increased PCBM content, while phase segregation on a sub-micron scale was observed for the 1:4 composition. The power conversion efficiency (AM 1.5) was doubled by the thermal annealing of devices at 140∘C to reach a value of 1.4%.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Electronic Materials and Devices, Department of Physics, Blackett Laboratory, Imperial College London, Prince Consort Road, London, SW7 2BW, UK

    Y. Kim, S. A. Choulis, J. Nelson & D. D. C. Bradley

  2. Center for Electronic Materials and Devices, Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    S. Cook & J. R. Durrant

Authors
  1. Y. Kim
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  2. S. A. Choulis
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  3. J. Nelson
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  4. D. D. C. Bradley
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  5. S. Cook
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  6. J. R. Durrant
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Correspondence to Y. Kim.

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Kim, Y., Choulis, S.A., Nelson, J. et al. Composition and annealing effects in polythiophene/fullerene solar cells. J Mater Sci 40, 1371–1376 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-005-0568-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-005-0568-0

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