We report a general light processing strategy for organic solar cells (OSC) that exploits the propensity of the fullerene derivative PC60BM to photo-oligomerize, which is capable of both stabilizing the polymer:PC60BM active layer morphology and enhancing the device stability under thermal annealing. The observations hold for blends of PC60BM with an array of benchmark donor polymer systems, including P3HT, DPP-TT-T, PTB7, and PCDTBT. The morphology and kinetics of the thermally induced PC60BM crystallization within the blend films are investigated as a function of substrate and temperature. PC60BM nucleation rates on SiOx substrates exhibit a pronounced peak profile with temperature, whose maximum is polymer and blend-composition dependent. Modest illumination (<10 mW/cm(2)) significantly suppresses nucleation, which is quantified as function of dose, but does not affect crystalline shape or growth, in the micrometer range. On PEDOT:PSS substrates, thermally induced PC60BM aggregation is observed on smaller (≈ 100 nm) length scales, depending upon donor polymer, and also suppressed by light exposure. The concurrent thermal dissociation process of PC60BM oligomers in blend films is also investigated and the activation energy of the fullerene-fullerene bond is estimated to be 0.96 ± 0.04 eV. Following light processing, the thermal stability, and thus lifetime, of PCDTBT:PC60BM devices increases for annealing times up to 150 h. In contrast, PCDTBT:PC70BM OSCs are found to be largely light insensitive. The results are rationalized in terms of the suppression of PC60BM micro- and nanoscopic crystallization processes upon thermal annealing caused by photoinduced PC60BM oligomerization.

Silaindacenodithiophene is copolymerized with benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole (BT) and 4,7‐di(thiophen‐2‐yl)benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole (DTBT), respectively their fluorinated counter parts 5,6‐difluorobenzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole (2FBT) and 5,6‐difluoro‐4,7‐di(thiophen‐2‐yl) benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole (2FDTBT). The influence of the thienyl spacers and fluorine atoms on molecular packing and active layer morphology is investigated with regard to device performances. bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells based on silaindacenodithiophene donor‐acceptor polymers achieved PCE's of 4.5% and hole mobilities of as high as 0.28 cm2/(V s) are achieved in an organic field‐effect transistor (OFET).

A key challenge to the commercialization of organic bulk heterojunction solar cells is the achievement of morphological stability, particularly under thermal stress conditions. Here we show that a low-level light exposure processing step during fabrication of blend polymer:PC 60 BM solar cells can result in a 10-fold increase in device thermal stability and, under certain conditions, enhanced device performance. The enhanced stability is linked to the light-induced oligomerization of PC 60 BM that effectively hinders their diffusion and crystallization in the blend. We thus suggest that light processing may be a promising, general and cost-effective strategy to optimize fullerene-based solar cell performance. The low level of light exposure required suggests not only that this may be an easily implementable strategy to enhance performance, but also that light-induced PC 60 BM oligomerization may have inadvertently influenced previous studies of organic solar cell device behaviour.

A series of low bandgap indacenodithiophene polymers is purified by recycling SEC in order to isolate narrow polydispersity fractions. This additional purification step is found to have a significant beneficial influence on the solar cell performance and the reasons for this performance increase are investigated.

The synthesis and characterization four diketopyrrolopyrrole containing conjugated polymers for use in organic photovoltaics is presented. Excellent energy level control is demonstrated through heteroatomic substitution whilst maintaining similar solid state properties as shown by X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy. Inverted solar cells were fabricated with the best devices having short circuit currents exceeding 16 mA cm − 2 and effi ciencies of over 5% irrespective of whether [6,6]-phenyl-C 61 -butyric acid methyl ester (PC 60 BM) or [6,6]-phenyl-C 71 -butyric acid methyl ester (PC 70 BM) is used. Transient absorption spectroscopy on the bulk heterojunction blends shows effi cient charge photo-generation, with the variations in short circuit current correlated to the energetic offset between polymer and fullerene.