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Applied Physics Letters / Volume 100 / Issue 1 / ORGANIC ELECTRONICS AND PHOTONICS
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Appl. Phys. Lett. 100, 013307 (2012); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3672221 (3 pages)

Can morphology tailoring improve the open circuit voltage of organic solar cells?

Biswajit Ray, Mark S. Lundstrom, and Muhammad A. Alam

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906, USA

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(Received 7 June 2011; accepted 22 November 2011; published online 5 January 2012)

While the effect of interfacial morphology on the short circuit current (ISC) of organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs) is well known, its impact on open circuit voltage (VOC) and fill-factor (FF) are less clear. Since the output power of a solar cell Pout = ISCVOCFF, such understanding is critical for designing high-performance, morphology-engineered OPVs. In this letter, we provide an explicit analytical proof that any effort to radically improve VOC by tailoring bulk heterojunction morphology is futile, because any increase in ISC due to larger interface area is counterbalanced by corresponding increase in recombination current, so that the upper limit of VOCBHJ cannot exceed that of the corresponding planar heterojunction devices, i.e., VOCBHJ ≤ VOCPHJ. We discuss the implication of this VOC-constraint on the efficiency optimization of organic solar cells.

© 2012 American Institute of Physics

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KEYWORDS and PACS

Keywords

organic semiconductors, semiconductor heterojunctions, short-circuit currents, solar cells

PACS

  • 88.40.jr

    Organic photovoltaics

  • 88.40.hj

    Efficiency and performance of solar cells

ARTICLE DATA

Digital Object Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.3672221

PUBLICATION DATA

ISSN

0003-6951 (print)  
1077-3118 (online)

Publisher

$abstract.society.value is a Member of CrossRef American Institute of Physics

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Figures (click on thumbnails to view enlargements)

FIG.1
(Color online) Structure of an organic solar cell. (a) PHJ based OPV cell. (b) The band diagram for PHJ cell at open circuit condition. (c) BHJ type OPV cell. The active layer morphology is generated by numerical simulation. WD is the average domain size in the structure. (d) Equivalent geometrical transform of the complicated BHJ morphology. The width of the transformed rectangle is same as WD of BHJ morphology. EBL and HBL are electron and hole blocking layers respectively.

FIG.1 Download High Resolution Image (.zip file) | Export Figure to PowerPoint

FIG.2
(Color online) Validation of analytical model (solid line) with detailed numerical simulation (symbols). (a) The geometric amplification function fG(ABHJ) is plotted. Note that for ABHJ≫APHJ, the function fG saturates to a fixed value given by ηDTflim/Lex. (b) Interfacial carrier densities as a function of distance from anode to cathode are plotted. We note that product of the interfacial carrier densities remains essentially constant throughout the active volume. (c) Short circuit current (ISCBHJ) of BHJ cell normalized by short circuit current (ISCPHJ) of PHJ cell is plotted against total D-A interfacial area (ABHJ), divided by PHJ cell area (APHJ). Open circuit voltage of BHJ cell (VOCBHJ) is also plotted against area of interface on the right hand side axis. (d) The ηBHJ/ηPHJ is plotted assuming same FF for both PHJ and BHJ cell.

FIG.2 Download High Resolution Image (.zip file) | Export Figure to PowerPoint

Supplemental Files (EPAPS)



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