John A. Love

Non‐Basic High‐Performance Molecules for Solution‐Processed Organic Solar Cells

A new small molecule, p-DTS(FBTTh(2))(2), is designed for incorporation into solution-fabricated high-efficiency organic solar cells. Of primary importance is the incorporation of electron poor heterocycles that are not prone to protonation and thereby enable the incorporation of commonly used interlayers between the organic semiconductor and the charge collecting electrodes. These features have led to the creation of p-DTS(FBTTh(2))(2)/PC(71)BM solar cells with power conversion efficiencies of up to 7%.

Mobility Guidelines for High Fill Factor Solution‐Processed Small Molecule Solar Cells

Analysis of measured charge-carrier mobilities and fill factors in solution-processable small-molecule bulk-heterojunction solar cells reveals that in order to achieve a high FF, the hole and electron mobilities must be >10(-4) cm 2 V(-1) s(-1) . Neat-film mobility measurements are also found to be a useful predictor of the maximum blend film mobility and FF obtained in blend film solar cells.

Solvent Additive Effects on Small Molecule Crystallization in Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells Probed During Spin Casting

Solvent additive processing can lead to drastic improvements in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) in solution processable small molecule (SPSM) bulk heterojunction solar cells. In situ grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering is used to investigate the kinetics of crystallite formation during and shortly after spin casting. The additive is shown to have a complex effect on structural evolution invoking polymorphism and enhanced crystalline quality of the donor SPSM.

Harvesting the Full Potential of Photons with Organic Solar Cells

A low-bandgap polymer:fullerene blend that has significantly reduced energetic losses from photon absorption to VOC is described. The charge-transfer state and polymer singlet are of nearly equal energy, yet the short-circuit current still reaches 14 mA cm(-2).

Topological Considerations for the Design of Molecular Donors with Multiple Absorbing Units

The molecule AT1, with two weakly conjugated chromophores, was designed, synthesized, and examined within the context of its film forming tendencies. While the addition of the second chromophore to the central core enables broadening of the absorption spectrum, this change is mostly apparent in films that are grown slowly. Grazing incidence X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) analysis indicates that these spectral characteristics correspond to an increase in solid state ordering. This information, in combination with differential scanning calorimetry, suggests that the overall molecular shape provides a kinetic barrier to crystallization. As a result, one finds the absence of molecular order when AT1 is combined with PC71BM in solution-cast blends. These findings highlight the importance of molecular topology when designing molecular components for solar cell devices.

Interplay of solvent additive concentration and active layer thickness on the performance of small molecule solar cells.

A relationship between solvent additive concentration and active layer thickness in small-molecule solar cells is investigated. Specifically, the additive concentration must scale with the amount of semiconductor material and not as absolute concentration in solution. Devices with a wide range of active layers with thickness up to 200 nm can readily achieve efficiencies close to 6% when the right concentration of additive is used.

Ultrafast Charge Generation in an Organic Bilayer Film

The dynamics of charge generation in a high performing molecular photovoltaic system, p-SIDT(FBTTh2)2 (see Figure 1 ) is studied with transient absorption. The optimized bulk heterojunction material shows behavior observed in many other systems; the majority of charges are generated at short time scales (<150 fs), and a slower contribution from incoherently diffusing excitons is observed at low pump fluence. In a separate experiment, the role of bulk heterojunction material morphology on the process of ultrafast charge generation was investigated with bilayers made with solution processed donor molecules on a photopolymerized C60 layer. The majority of carriers are again produced at short time scales, ruling out the idea that subpicosecond charge generation can be understood wholly in terms of localized excitons. We evaluate possible causes of this behavior and propose that the excited state is highly delocalized on short time scales, providing ample probability density at the charge generating interface.

Use of a commercially available nucleating agent to control the morphological development of solution-processed small molecule bulk heterojunction organic solar cells

The nucleating agent DMDBS is used to modulate the crystallization of solution-processed small molecule donor molecules in bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaic (BHJ OPV) devices. This control over donor molecule crystallization leads to a reduction in optimized thermal annealing times as well as smaller donor molecule crystallites, and therefore more efficient devices, when using an excessive amount of solvent additive. We therefore demonstrate the use of nucleating agents as a powerful and versatile processing strategy for solution-processed, small molecule BHJ OPVs.

Understanding the Charge‐Transfer State and Singlet Exciton Emission from Solution‐Processed Small‐Molecule Organic Solar Cells

Electroluminescence (EL) from the charge-transfer state and singlet excitons is observed at low applied voltages from high-performing small-molecule bulk-heterojunction solar cells. Singlet emission from the blends emerges upon altering the processing conditions, such as thermal annealing and processing with a solvent additive, and correlates with improved photovoltaic performance. Low-temperature EL measurements are utilized to access the physics behind the singlet emission.

Impact of interfacial molecular orientation on radiative recombination and charge generation efficiency

A long standing question in organic electronics concerns the effects of molecular orientation at donor/acceptor heterojunctions. Given a well-controlled donor/acceptor bilayer system, we uncover the genuine effects of molecular orientation on charge generation and recombination. These effects are studied through the point of view of photovoltaics—however, the results have important implications on the operation of all optoelectronic devices with donor/acceptor interfaces, such as light emitting diodes and photodetectors. Our findings can be summarized by two points. First, devices with donor molecules face-on to the acceptor interface have a higher charge transfer state energy and less non-radiative recombination, resulting in larger open-circuit voltages and higher radiative efficiencies. Second, devices with donor molecules edge-on to the acceptor interface are more efficient at charge generation, attributed to smaller electronic coupling between the charge transfer states and the ground state, and lower activation energy for charge generation.Molecular orientation profoundly affects the performance of donor-acceptor heterojunctions, whilst it has remained challenging to investigate the detail. Using a controllable interface, Ran et al. show that the edge-on geometries improve charge generation at the cost of non-radiative recombination loss.