Charge Separation at Self‐Assembled Nanostructured Bulk Interface in Block Copolymers

Lindner, Stefan; Hüttner, Sven; Chiche, Arnaud; Thelakkat, Mukundan; Krausch, Georg

doi:10.1002/anie.200503958

Cited by 211 publications

(197 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…63 Once more, this is a primary consideration when designing block copolymers for photovoltaic devices. 123 It is important to mention the work of Lindner et al 152,177,178 where, for the first time, high molecular weight coil-coil block copolymers PvTPA-b-PPerAcr shown in Figure 7(a) were used to prepare devices that clearly demonstrated photovoltaic capabilities greater than blends of the same component homopolymers (Fig. 15).…”

Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Backfilling can be carried out using either dip coating or electrochemical deposition. Some of the more complex and interconnected block copolymer structures, such as the gyroid phase, occupy only a very small region of the phase diagram and complications due to the Reprinted from Linder et al 178 Angewandte Chemie International Edition (2006) with permission from Wiley.…”

Section: Templatingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…178 This enabled the comparison of blend and block copolymer devices for the same composition of the two polymers. Comparing the morphology using cross sectional TEM they found that the blend formed micronsized domains whereas the block copolymer gave ribbon-like domains ($100 nm in length and 10 to 20 nm wide) aligned parallel to the substrate.…”

Section: Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Block copolymer strategies for solar cell technology

Topham¹,

Parnell²,

Hiorns³

2011

J Polym Sci B Polym Phys

186

169

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A simple overview of the methods used and the expected benefits of block copolymers in organic photovoltaic devices is given in this review. The description of the photovoltaic process makes it clear how the detailed self-assembly properties of block copolymers can be exploited. Organic photovoltaic technology, an inexpensive, clean and renewable energy source, is an extremely promising option for replacing fossil fuels. It is expected to deliver printable devices processed on flexible substrates using high-volume techniques. Such devices, however, currently lack the long-term stability and efficiency to allow organic photovoltaics to surpass current technologies. Block copolymers are envisaged to help overcome these obstacles because of their long term structural stability and their solid-state morphology being of the appropriate dimensions to efficiently perform charge collection and transfer to electrodes.

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Section: Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Templatingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Block copolymer strategies for solar cell technology

Topham¹,

Parnell²,

Hiorns³

2011

J Polym Sci B Polym Phys

186

169

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…55 Attempts to exploit donor-acceptor block copolymers for photovoltaic applications have been limited, both in number and success. [56][57][58][59][60] Another way to make the blend morphology less sensitive to the film forming conditions was introduced by Kietzke and co-workers. 61 The method involves Figure 4.…”

Section: Factors Influencing the Morphology Of The Photoactive Layer mentioning

confidence: 99%

Nanoscale structure of solar cells based on pure conjugated polymer blends

Veenstra

Loos

Kroon

2007

Progress in Photovoltaics

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This paper gives an overview of the status of photovoltaic devices based on blends of semiconducting polymers. The polymer blends form the bulk heterojunction in these photovoltaic devices. The fundamental mechanisms governing the performance of these devices are discussed as well as the specificities of these all-polymer solar cells. The morphology of the polymer blend layer is expected to influence the device performance of these bulk heterojunctions. An overview is presented of factors that influence the morphology of the active layer of polymer blend photovoltaic devices together with a summary of tools available to study the structure of this layer. An advanced electron microscopy technique is applied to study the morphology of polymer blends of MDMO-PPV and PCNEPV with differing molecular weights. It is shown that the molecular weight of the polymer influences the typical domain size from $200 nm down to less than 5 nm in these bulk heterojunction PV devices. No strong relation is observed between the typical length scale of the phase separated domains and the measured external quantum efficiency, indicating that the phases are intermixed.

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“…Based on this concept, new more sophisticated device architectures have been devised in the past two decades, such as multi-layers 7 and blends 8,9 composed of different types of small molecules, bilayers 10 and blends 11,12 made from different polymer species, bilayers 13 and blends [14][15][16][17] composed of polymers and small molecules, as well as block copolymers. 18 However, despite recent advances, the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells is still rather small compared to inorganic ones with maximum values ranging from 7% to 8%. 19 The relatively low power conversion efficiency of OPV cells can mainly be attributed to loss phenomena of the elementary particles involved in the photovoltaic process, such as photon loss, exciton loss, and charge carrier loss.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new multiscale modeling method for simulating the loss processes in polymer solar cell nanodevices

Pershin

Donets

Baeurle

2012

The Journal of Chemical Physics

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The photoelectric power conversion efficiency of polymer solar cells is till now, compared to conventional inorganic solar cells, still relatively low with maximum values ranging from 7% to 8%. This essentially relates to the existence of exciton and charge carrier loss phenomena, reducing the performance of polymer solar cells significantly. In this paper we introduce a new computer simulation technique, which permits to explore the causes of the occurrence of such phenomena at the nanoscale and to design new photovoltaic materials with optimized opto-electronic properties. Our approach consists in coupling a mesoscopic field-theoretic method with a suitable dynamic Monte Carlo algorithm, to model the elementary photovoltaic processes. Using this algorithm, we investigate the influence of structural characteristics and different device conditions on the exciton generation and charge transport efficiencies in case of a novel nanostructured polymer blend. More specifically, we find that the disjunction of continuous percolation paths leads to the creation of dead ends, resulting in charge carrier losses through charge recombination. Moreover, we observe that defects are characterized by a low exciton dissociation efficiency due to a high charge accumulation, counteracting the charge generation process. From these observations, we conclude that both the charge carrier loss and the exciton loss phenomena lead to a dramatic decrease in the internal quantum efficiency. Finally, by analyzing the photovoltaic behavior of the nanostructures under different circuit conditions, we demonstrate that charge injection significantly determines the impact of the defects on the solar cell performance.

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Charge Separation at Self‐Assembled Nanostructured Bulk Interface in Block Copolymers

Cited by 211 publications

References 28 publications

Block copolymer strategies for solar cell technology

Block copolymer strategies for solar cell technology

Nanoscale structure of solar cells based on pure conjugated polymer blends

A new multiscale modeling method for simulating the loss processes in polymer solar cell nanodevices

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