Martijn Lenes

Simple, Fast, Bright, and Stable Light Sources

In this work we show that solution-processed light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) based on only an ionic iridium complex and a small amount of ionic liquid exhibit exceptionally good performances when applying a pulsed current: sub-second turn-on times and almost constant high luminances (>600 cd m(-2) ) and power efficiencies over the first 600 h. This demonstrates the potential of LECs for applications in solid-state signage and lighting.

Polymer solar cells based on diphenylmethanofullerenes with reduced sidechain length

Diphenylmethanofullerenes (DPMs) show interesting properties as acceptors in polymer bulk heterojunction solar cells due to the high open circuit voltages they generate compared to their energy levels. Here we investigate the effect of reducing the alkane sidechain length of the DPMs from C12 to C6 in the properties of the solar cell. This change leads to an increase in the electron mobility, thus allowing for a lower fullerene content, which in turn results in an increase in the short circuit current and, finally, in an increase in the efficiency of the device (from 2.3 to 2.6%) due to the higher concentration of the more absorbing polymer in the film. Atomic force microscopy images and external quantum efficiencies suggest the absence of crystallization of the fullerene to be at the origin of the slightly reduced performance of DPMs versus the standard fullerene [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester, implying that higher efficiencies could be possible with this class of fullerenes.

Ionic space-charge effects in solid state organic photovoltaics.

The effect of mobile ions on the operation of donor-acceptor bilayer solar cells is studied. We demonstrate the large effect ions can have on the energetics of the solar cells, illustrated by (for instance) changing the output voltage of a cell in situ from 0.35 to 0.74 V. More importantly, it is shown ionic species do not obstruct the charge generating properties of the photovoltaic devices and ionic space charge can be used in situ to improve their efficiencies. The results obtained are explained by taking into account energetic changes at the donor-acceptor interface as well as built-in potentials, giving clear guidelines on how ionic species can offer many new and exciting functionalities to organic photovoltaics.

Meniscus coated high open-circuit voltage bi-layer solar cells

Neat bi-layer solar cells of a fullerene acceptor and a cyanine dye donor were prepared using meniscus coating. Meniscus coating is very material efficient and leads to high quality pinhole-free films. The cells exhibit high open circuit voltages of 1 volt, only 0.8 eV below the band gap of the cyanine dye. This is one of the smallest differences reported for organic solar cells and illustrates an almost optimal donor-acceptor energy level alignment.