St Andrews Research Repository

St Andrews University Home
View Item 
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  •   St Andrews Research Repository
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • University of St Andrews Research
  • View Item
  • Login
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Determining the optimum morphology in high-performance polymer-fullerene organic photovoltaic cells

Thumbnail
View/Open
Hedley2013ncomms3867.pdf (1.844Mb)
Date
17/12/2013
Author
Hedley, Gordon James
Ward, Alexander J
Alekseev, Alexander
Howells, Calvyn Travis
Rezende Martins, Emiliano
Serrano, Luis A
Cooke, Graeme
Ruseckas, Arvydas
Samuel, Ifor David William
Keywords
QC Physics
Metadata
Show full item record
Altmetrics Handle Statistics
Altmetrics DOI Statistics
Abstract
The morphology of bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaic cells defines many of the device performance characteristics. Measuring the morphology is challenging due to the small length scales and low contrast between organic materials. Here we have utilised nanoscale photocurrent mapping, ultrafast fluorescence and exciton diffusion to observe the detailed morphology of a high performance blend. We show that optimised blends consist of elongated fullerene-rich and polymer-rich fibre-like domains which are 10-50 nm wide and 200-400 nm long. These elongated domains provide a concentration gradient for directional charge diffusion which helps extraction of charge pairs with 80% efficiency. In contrast, blends with agglomerated fullerene spheres show a much lower efficiency of charge extraction of ~45% which is attributed to poor electron and hole transport. Our results show that formation of narrow and elongated domains are desirable in bulk heterojunction solar cells.
Citation
Hedley , G J , Ward , A J , Alekseev , A , Howells , C T , Rezende Martins , E , Serrano , L A , Cooke , G , Ruseckas , A & Samuel , I D W 2013 , ' Determining the optimum morphology in high-performance polymer-fullerene organic photovoltaic cells ' , Nature Communications , vol. 4 , 2867 . https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3867
Publication
Nature Communications
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms3867
ISSN
2041-1723
Type
Journal article
Rights
(c) 2013, the authors. This is an open access article, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Description
This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (grant number EP/I013288/1) and from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme under grant agreement 321305.
Collections
  • University of St Andrews Research
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/4302

Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Advanced Search

Browse

All of RepositoryCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunderThis CollectionBy Issue DateNamesTitlesSubjectsClassificationTypeFunder

My Account

Login

Open Access

To find out how you can benefit from open access to research, see our library web pages and Open Access blog. For open access help contact: openaccess@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Accessibility

Read our Accessibility statement.

How to submit research papers

The full text of research papers can be submitted to the repository via Pure, the University's research information system. For help see our guide: How to deposit in Pure.

Electronic thesis deposit

Help with deposit.

Repository help

For repository help contact: Digital-Repository@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Give Feedback

Cookie policy

This site may use cookies. Please see Terms and Conditions.

Usage statistics

COUNTER-compliant statistics on downloads from the repository are available from the IRUS-UK Service. Contact us for information.

© University of St Andrews Library

University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland, No SC013532.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter