The anisotropy inherent to many planar organic molecules leads to a high sensitivity of various fundamental processes to the orientation of molecules within fi lms and at heterojunctions. Such processes include absorption, charge and exciton transport, energy levels, and charge transfer, all of which are critical to organic solar cell operation. Here,an in-depth study of bilayer cells consisting of a donor/acceptor interface between zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc) and fullerene (C 60 ) is conducted and devices with the typically deposited standing up (edge-on) orientation are compared to those with ZnPc lying fl at (face-on). The face-on ZnPc-based device allows for an increase in all solar cell parameters, substantially increasing power conversion effi ciency from 1.5% to 2.8%. Spectrally resolved photocurrent measurements reveal a > 50% increase in ZnPc signal, from which only 12% is accounted for by the increase in absorption associated with the face-on orientation. The increase in internal quantum effi ciency is accounted for via an improved charge transfer. The results of this study indicate that proper consideration of the orientation between donor and acceptor needs to be taken in order to fully optimize the numerous processes required for photovoltaic energy conversion.

In this review, we focus on the field of organic photovoltaic cells based on small molecular weight materials. In particular, we discuss the physical processes that lead to photocurrent generation in organic solar cells, as well as the various architectures employed to optimize device performance. These include the donor-acceptor heterojunction for efficient exciton dissociation, the exciton blocking layer, the mixed or bulk heterojunction, and the stacked or tandem cell. We show how the choice of materials with known energy levels and absorption spectra affect device performance, particularly the open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current density. We also discuss the typical materials and growth techniques used to fabricate devices, as well as the issue of device stability, all of which are critical for the commercialization of low-cost and high-performance organic solar cells.

The properties of the dielectric strongly influence the performance of organic thin-film transistors. In this letter, we show experimental results that quantify the influence of the roughness of the dielectric on the mobility of pentacene transistors and discuss the cause of it. We consider the movement of charge carriers out of the "roughness valleys" or across those valleys at the dielectricsemiconductor interface as the limiting step for the roughness-dependent mobility in the transistor channel.

Transistor parameter extraction by the conventional transconductance method can lead to a mobility overestimate. Organic transistors undergoing major contact resistance experience a significant drop in mobility upon mild annealing. Before annealing, strong field-dependent contact resistance yields nonlinear transfer curves with locally high transconductances, resulting in a mobility overestimate. After annealing, a contact resistance below 200 Ω cm is achieved, which is stable over a wide V(G) range.

A main focus of research on organic semiconductors is their potential application in passive organic radio-frequency identification (RF-ID) tags. First prototypes working at 125 kHz have been shown by industrial research groups. However, to be commercially viable, the organic RF-ID tag would need to be compatible with the base-carrier frequency of 13.56 MHz (ref. 2). High-frequency operation has been out of reach for devices based on organic semiconducting material, because of the intrinsically low mobility of those materials. Here, we report on a rectifier based on a pentacene diode that can rectify an incoming a.c. signal at 50 MHz. At 14 MHz, a rectified voltage of 11 V for an a.c. voltage with a peak-to-peak amplitude of 36 V has been achieved. On the basis of those results, we estimate the frequency limits of an organic diode showing that even the ultra-high-frequency band at around 800 MHz is within reach.

We derive an analytical formula for the open-circuit voltage ͑V oc ͒ of organic planar heterojunction solar cells under standard operating conditions. We find that the type of free carrier recombination at the interface between the donor and acceptor materials controls the slope of V oc vs incident light intensity. By using the same derivation, an equation for the resistance around V oc is obtained. From this, we investigate two parameters in more detail and compare them to experiments. The first is the work function of the cathode metal. We show that, within our model, V oc does not depend on this work function, while the cell resistance around V oc is strongly dependent on it. Second, we find that the asymptotic resistance around V oc is a third-order power function of the thickness of the organic layers ͑acceptor or donor͒. The model provides insights to achieve low-resistivity high open-circuit voltage organic solar cells.

Ink-jet printing is used to deposit polymer:fullerene blends suitable as active layer for organic solar cells. We show that merging of separately deposited ink droplets into a continuous, pinhole-free organic thin film results from a balance between ink viscosity and surface wetting, whereas for certain of the studied solutions clear coffee drop effect occurs for single droplets; this can be minimized for larger printed areas, yielding smooth layers with minimal surface roughness. Resulting organic films are used as active layer for solar cells with power conversion efficiency of 1.4% under simulated AM1.5 solar illumination.

The use of non-fullerene acceptors in organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices could lead to enhanced efficiencies due to increased open-circuit voltage (VOC) and improved absorption of solar light. Here we systematically investigate planar heterojunction devices comprising peripherally substituted subphthalocyanines as acceptors and correlate the device performance with the heterojunction energetics. As a result of a balance between VOC and the photocurrent, tuning of the interface energy gap is necessary to optimize the power conversion efficiency in these devices. In addition, we explore the role of the charge transport layers in the device architecture. It is found that non-fullerene acceptors require adjusted buffer layers with aligned electron transport levels to enable efficient charge extraction, while the insertion of an exciton-blocking layer at the anode interface further boosts photocurrent generation. These adjustments result in a planar-heterojunction OPV device with an efficiency of 6.9% and a VOC above 1 V.