Electron tomography has been used for analyzing the active layer in a polymer solar cell, a bulk heterojunction of an alternating copolymer of fluorene and a derivative of fullerene. The method supplies a three-dimensional representation of the morphology of the film, where domains with different scattering properties may be distinguished. The reconstruction shows good contrast between the two phases included in the film and demonstrates that electron tomography is an adequate tool for investigations of the three-dimensional nanostructure of the amorphous materials used in polymer solar cells.
Transient temperature and stress distributions are analytically and experimentally investigated for a butt welded plate of HT36-steel. A two-dimensional thermal FE-model is shown to represent the temperature distribution sufficiently well in a considered case of submerged-arc welding where a high welding speed is used. A two-dimensional mechanical FE-model is used to find the transient stress pattern. The theoretically and experimentally obtained residual stress distributions show some discrepancies which are believed to be due to Bauschinger effects not considered here.
The role of an optical spacer layer has been examined by optical simulations of organic solar cells with various bandgaps. The simulations have been performed with the transfer matrix method and the finite element method. The results show that no beneficial effect can be expected by adding an optical spacer to a solar cell with an already optimized active layer thickness.
How 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO) enhances performance of polymer solar cells based on polymer HXS-1 and fullerene [6,6]-phenyl C 71 -butyric acid methyl ester (PC 71 BM) from 3.6% to 5.4% is scrutinized with several techniques by comparing devices or blend films spin-coated from dichlorobenzene (DCB) to those from DCB/DIO (97.5:2.5 v/v). Morphology of blend films is examined with atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electron tomography (3-D TEM), respectively. Charge generation and recombination is studied with photoluminescence, and charge transport with field effect transistors. The morphology with domain size in 10-20 nm and vertical elongated clusters formed in DIO system is supposed to facilitate charge transport and minimize charge carrier recombination, which are the main reasons for enhancing power conversion efficiency (PCE) from 3.6% (without DIO) to 5.4% (with DIO). Furthermore, a two year inspection shows no significant impact of DIO on the shelf-stability of the solar cells. No visible degradation in the second year indicates that the morphology of the active layers in the devices is relatively stable after initial relaxation in the first year.
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