Challenges Found When Patterning Semiconducting Polymers with Electric Fields for Organic Solar Cell Applications

Abstract

A material-independent, contactless structuring method of semiconducting organic materials for the fabrication of interface-enhanced bilayer solar cells is not available so far. Patterning of thin films using electrohydrodynamic instabilities possesses many desired characteristics and has convincingly been used as a simple method to structure and replicate patterns of nonconducting polymers on submicrometer length scales. However, the applicability of this technique to a wider range of materials has not been demonstrated yet. Here, we report attempts to structure poly(p-phenylene vinylene) in a similar way. We found that thin films of poly(2-methoxy-5-(2′-ethylhexyl-oxy)-1,4-phenylene-vinylene) (MEH-PPV) and poly(2-methoxy-5-(3′,7′-dimethyloctyloxy)-1,4-phenylene-vinylene) (MDMO-PPV) could not be destabilized at all in the limited accessible range of the experimental parameters set by the delicate chemical nature of these materials. We discuss failure origins and present possible loopholes for the patterning of semiconducting polymers using electric fields.

Nanowires with unusual packing of poly(3-hexylthiophene)s induced by electric fields

“…pillars span the two parallel electrodes) in this experimental condition because of the high viscosity of the stiff backbone of conjugated polymers. 36,37 Structural characterization of the nanowires HRTEM is a useful tool to directly provide the detailed packing of polymer chains at molecular scale. We performed TEM and HRTEM to further investigate the nanowires with an electric eld treatment at an early stage.…”

Optically induced electrohydrodynamic instability-based micro-patterning of fluidic thin films

“…The scope of research into EHDI initially focused on polymers but has now extended to titanium oxide (Voicu et al 2007;Kim et al 2012), metals (Gill et al 2008), and semiconducting organic materials (de Castro et al 2012). In order to circumvent the problems associated with high temperatures (such as polymer degradation by thermal oxidation) which arise due to long processing times, methods, such as ''solvent annealing'' (Harkema and Steiner 2005) and low viscosity, photocurable liquids, were introduced into the EHDI process (Dickey et al 2006).…”

Enhanced the Photovoltaic Performance of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells using Cu and Mn doped CdSe Nanoparticles

“…After the photons are absorbed, holes and electrons are formed with finite momenta in the valence and conduction bands, respectively. The photon emission is derived from the recombination of the electrons and holes [19]. The high PL emission value is favorable because more excitons (electrons and holes) results in more recombination of electrons and holes to emit a large number of photons.…”