Jérôme Cornil

Molecular Understanding of Organic Solar Cells: The Challenges

Our objective in this Account is 3-fold. First, we provide an overview of the optical and electronic processes that take place in a solid-state organic solar cell, which we define as a cell in which the semiconducting materials between the electrodes are organic, be them polymers, oligomers, or small molecules; this discussion is also meant to set the conceptual framework in which many of the contributions to this Special Issue on Photovoltaics can be viewed. We successively turn our attention to (i) optical absorption and exciton formation, (ii) exciton migration to the donor-acceptor interface, (iii) exciton dissociation into charge carriers, resulting in the appearance of holes in the donor and electrons in the acceptor, (iv) charge-carrier mobility, and (v) charge collection at the electrodes. For each of these processes, we also describe the theoretical challenges that need to be overcome to gain a comprehensive understanding at the molecular level. Finally, we highlight recent theoretical advances, in particular regarding the determination of the energetics and dynamics at organic-organic interfaces, and underline that the right balance needs to be found for the optimization of material parameters that often result in opposite effects on the photovoltaic performance.

Organic semiconductors: A theoretical characterization of the basic parameters governing charge transport

Organic semiconductors based on π-conjugated oligomers and polymers constitute the active elements in new generations of plastic (opto)electronic devices. The performance of these devices depends largely on the efficiency of the charge-transport processes; at the microscopic level, one of the major parameters governing the transport properties is the amplitude of the electronic transfer integrals between adjacent oligomer or polymer chains. Here, quantum-chemical calculations are performed on model systems to address the way transfer integrals between adjacent chains are affected by the nature and relative positions of the interacting units. Compounds under investigation include oligothienylenes, hexabenzocoronene, oligoacenes, and perylene. It is shown that the amplitude of the transfer integrals is extremely sensitive to the molecular packing. Interestingly, in contrast to conventional wisdom, specific arrangements can lead to electron mobilities that are larger than hole mobilities, which is, for instance, the case of perylene.

The Role of Driving Energy and Delocalized States for Charge Separation in Organic Semiconductors

Bands That Separate In organic photovoltaic devices, the charge carriers that form at the interface between donor and acceptor layers—the electrons and holes—form bound states called excitons. Efficient current generation requires some mechanism for their separation and for the movement of free carriers to the electrodes. Bakulin et al. (p. 1340, published online 23 February) studied a process in which the excitons created with an optical pulse were also subjected to infrared pulses. In polymer-blend devices, a three-step process was observed: The boundstate excitons diffused toward the donor-acceptor interface, formed a charge-transfer state, and then dissociated into free carriers. Bound excited charge carriers achieve long-range separation by promotion to delocalized band states. The electron-hole pair created via photon absorption in organic photoconversion systems must overcome the Coulomb attraction to achieve long-range charge separation. We show that this process is facilitated through the formation of excited, delocalized band states. In our experiments on organic photovoltaic cells, these states were accessed for a short time (<1 picosecond) via infrared (IR) optical excitation of electron-hole pairs bound at the heterojunction. Atomistic modeling showed that the IR photons promote bound charge pairs to delocalized band states, similar to those formed just after singlet exciton dissociation, which indicates that such states act as the gateway for charge separation. Our results suggest that charge separation in efficient organic photoconversion systems occurs through hot-state charge delocalization rather than energy-gradient–driven intermolecular hopping.

Interchain Interactions in Organic π‐Conjugated Materials: Impact on Electronic Structure, Optical Response, and Charge Transport

The pioneering work of Heeger, MacDiarmid, and Shirakawa, rewarded by the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, has paved the way for the development of the fields of plastic electronics and photonics. Functional organic molecular materials and conjugated oligomers or polymers now allow the low-cost fabrication of thin films for insertion into new generations of electronic and optoelectronic devices. The performance of these devices relies on the understanding and optimization of several complementary processes (see sketch). Our goal is to discuss, from a theoretical standpoint, the electronic structure characteristics and interfacial properties that are of importance in all these areas. The concept of interface should be taken here in the microscopic sense, i.e., molecular interactions among two or several chains/molecules (of the same or of a different nature). Specifically, we will address the impact of interchain interactions within an organic layer on the transport and optical properties. These issues will therefore be more directly related to transistor and light-emitting diode applications; however, in all instances, the aspects related to interfacial charge or energy transfer processes will dictate the ultimate performance of a material in a given device.

Single-electron transistor of a single organic molecule with access to several redox states.

A combination of classical Coulomb charging, electronic level spacings, spin, and vibrational modes determines the single-electron transfer reactions through nanoscale systems connected to external electrodes by tunnelling barriers. Coulomb charging effects have been shown to dominate such transport in semiconductor quantum dots, metallic and semiconducting nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, and single molecules. Recently, transport has been shown to be also influenced by spin—through the Kondo effect—for both nanotubes and single molecules, as well as by vibrational fine structure. Here we describe a single-electron transistor where the electronic levels of a single π-conjugated molecule in several distinct charged states control the transport properties. The molecular electronic levels extracted from the single-electron-transistor measurements are strongly perturbed compared to those of the molecule in solution, leading to a very significant reduction of the gap between the highest occupied molecular orbital and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital. We suggest, and verify by simple model calculations, that this surprising effect could be caused by image charges generated in the source and drain electrodes resulting in a strong localization of the charges on the molecule.

Three-dimensional band structure and bandlike mobility in oligoacene single crystals: A theoretical investigation

Quantum-chemical calculations coupled with a tight binding band model are used to study the charge carrier mobilities in oligoacene crystals. The transfer integrals for all nonzero interactions in four crystalline oligoacenes (naphthalene, anthracene, tetracene, and pentacene) were calculated, and then used to construct the excess electron and hole band structures of all four oligoacene crystals in the tight binding approximation. From these band structures, thermal-averaged velocity–velocity tensors in the constant-free-time and the constant-free-path approximations for all four materials were calculated at temperatures ranging from 2 to 500 K. The bandwidths for these oligoacenes were found to be of the order of 0.1–0.5 eV. Furthermore, comparison of the thermal-averaged velocity–velocity tensors with the experimental mobility data indicates that the simple band model is applicable for temperatures only up to about 150 K. A small-polaron band model is also considered, but the exponential band narrowing ...

Iridium Metal Complexes Containing N-Heterocyclic Carbene Ligands for Blue-Light-Emitting Electrochemical Cells

A new series of cationic blue-emitting, heteroleptic iridium(III)-based metal complexes were systematically synthesized using two 4,6-difluorophenylpyridine ligands as well as one methyl- or n-butyl-substituted bisimidazolium salt carbene-type ligand. In degassed CH(2)Cl(2), all complexes display highly efficient, blue phosphorescence (λ(max) ∼ 452 nm; emission quantum yield ∼ 0.30) at room temperature and also show blue emission in a thin film. The measured photophysical properties of the complexes have been rationalized with the help of quantum-chemical calculations. Because of the high solubility of the complexes, solution-processed devices, light-emitting electrochemical cells (LEECs), were made. The results showed that true blue emission and short turn-on time is achieved when an ionic conductor, tetrabutylammonium trifluoromethanesulfonate, was used as the matrix for the film containing the emitters. These iridium complexes and the described devices are the bluest materials ever reported and the first case of LEECs based on carbene ligands.

Interchain interactions in conjugated materials: The exciton model versus the supermolecular approach

Correlated quantum-chemical techniques are applied to the description of electronic excitations in interacting conjugated chains. The focus is on the magnitude and conjugation-length dependence of the splitting of the lowest optically allowed excitonic state, which is induced by interchain interactions. We first examine cofacial dimers formed by linear polyene chains of various lengths and use two strategies to compute the exciton coupling energy. One is based on molecular exciton theory, which assumes that the excited-state wave functions of the isolated chains remain unperturbed by the intermolecular forces; in the other, the supermolecular approach, the wave functions are obtained from molecular orbital calculations performed for the whole system and are therefore not constrained to a single chain. We find that the two techniques lead to consistent results, provided an appropriate form for the interchain Coulomb interactions is adopted in the excitonic model. In particular, both formalisms indicate a p...

Impact of Perfluorination on the Charge-Transport Parameters of Oligoacene Crystals

The charge-transport parameters of the perfluoropentacene and perfluorotetracene crystals are studied with a joint experimental and theoretical approach that combines gas-phase ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy and density functional theory. To gain a better understanding of the role of perfluorination, the results for perfluoropentacene and perfluorotetracene are compared to those for their parent oligoacenes, that is, pentacene and tetracene. Perfluorination is calculated to increase the ionization potentials and electron affinities by approximately 1 eV, which is expected to reduce significantly the injection barrier for electrons in organic electronics devices. Perfluorination also leads to significant changes in the crystalline packing, which greatly affects the electronic properties of the crystals and their charge-transport characteristics. The calculations predict large conduction and valence bandwidths and low hole and electron effective masses in the perfluoroacene crystals, with the largest mobilities expected along the pi-stacks. Perfluorination impacts as well both local and nonlocal vibrational couplings, whose strengths increase by a factor of about 2 with respect to the parent compounds.

Electronic and optical properties of polyfluorene and fluorene-based copolymers: A quantum-chemical characterization

We report a detailed quantum-chemical characterization of the electronic and optical properties of polyfluorene chains and compare them to those in copolymers containing alternating fluorene and benzothiadiazole or ethylenedioxythiophene units. The introduction of the comonomer can strongly modify the excitonic properties as well as the efficiency of charge- and energy-transfer processes. The choice of the comonomer is thus critical in targeting specific optical properties while maintaining good transport properties.