Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

13 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Understanding the Impact of Hierarchical Nanostructure in Ternary Organic Solar Cells.

ABSTRACT: Ternary organic solar cells (OSCs), which blend two donors and fullerene derivatives with different absorption ranges, are a promising potential strategy for high-power conversion efficiencies (PCEs). In this study, inverted ternary OSCs are fabricated by blending a highly crystalline small molecule BDT-3T-CNCOO in a low band gap polymer PBDTTT-C-T:PC₇₁BM. As the small molecule is introduced, the overall PCEs increase from 7.60% to 8.58%. The morphologies of ternary blends are studied by combining transmission electron microscopy and X-ray scattering techniques at different length scales. Hierarchical phase separation is revealed in the ternary blend, which is composed of domains with sizes of ≈88, ≈50, and ≈20 nm, respectively. The hierarchical phase separation balances the charge separation and transport in ternary OSCs. As a result, the fill factors of the devices significantly improve from 58.4% to 71.6%. Thus, ternary blends show higher hole mobility and higher fill factor than binary blends, which demonstrates a facile strategy to increase the performance of OSCs.

SUBMITTER: Fang J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5049664 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Similar Datasets

Insights into photovoltaic properties of ternary organic solar cells from phase diagrams.

Project description:The efficiency of ternary organic solar cells relies on the spontaneous establishment of a nanostructured network of donor and acceptor phases during film formation. A fundamental understanding of phase composition and arrangement and correlations to photovoltaic device parameters is of utmost relevance for both science and technology. We demonstrate a general approach to understanding solar cell behavior from simple thermodynamic principles. For two ternary blend systems we construct and model phase diagrams. Details of EQE and solar cell parameters can be understood from the phase behavior. Our blend system is composed of PC70BM, PBDTTT-C and a near-infrared absorbing cyanine dye. Cyanine dyes are accompanied by counterions, which, in a first approximation, do not change the photophysical properties of the dye, but strongly influence the morphology of the ternary blend. We argue that counterion dissociation is responsible for different mixing behavior. For the dye with a hexafluorophosphate counterion a hierarchical morphology develops, the dye phase separates on a large scale from PC70BM and cannot contribute to photocurrent. Differently, a cyanine dye with a TRISPHAT counterion shows partial miscibility with PC70BM. A large two-phase region dictated by the PC70BM: PBDTTT-C mixture is present and the dye greatly contributes to the short-circuit current.

| S-EPMC6161617 | biostudies-literature

ZnO Hierarchical Nanostructure Photoanode in a CdS Quantum Dot-Sensitized Solar Cell.

Project description:A hierarchical array of ZnO nanocones covered with ZnO nanospikes was hydrothermally fabricated and employed as the photoanode in a CdS quantum dot-sensitized solar cell (QDSSC). This QDSSC outperformed the QDSSC based on a simple ZnO nanocone photoanode in all the four principal photovoltaic parameters. Using the hierarchical photoanode dramatically increased the short circuit current density and also slightly raised the open circuit voltage and the fill factor. As a result, the conversion efficiency of the QDSSC based on the hierarchical photoanode was more than twice that of the QDSSC based on the simple ZnO nanocone photoanode. This improvement is attributable to both the enlarged specific area of the photoanode and the reduction in the recombination of the photoexcited electrons.

| S-EPMC4574909 | biostudies-literature

Hierarchical oriented anatase TiO2 nanostructure arrays on flexible substrate for efficient dye-sensitized solar cells.

Project description:The vertically oriented anatase single crystalline TiO2 nanostructure arrays (TNAs) consisting of TiO2 truncated octahedrons with exposed {001} facets or hierarchical TiO2 nanotubes (HNTs) consisting of numerous nanocrystals on Ti-foil substrate were synthesized via a two-step hydrothermal growth process. The first step hydrothermal reaction of Ti foil and NaOH leads to the formation of H-titanate nanowire arrays, which is further performed the second step hydrothermal reaction to obtain the oriented anatase single crystalline TiO2 nanostructures such as TiO2 nanoarrays assembly with truncated octahedral TiO2 nanocrystals in the presence of NH4F aqueous or hierarchical TiO2 nanotubes with walls made of nanocrystals in the presence of pure water. Subsequently, these TiO2 nanostructures were utilized to produce dye-sensitized solar cells in a backside illumination pattern, yielding a significant high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.66% (TNAs, J(SC) = 7.46 mA cm(-2), V(OC) = 839 mV, FF = 0.75) and 5.84% (HNTs, J(SC) = 10.02 mA cm(-2), V(OC) = 817 mV, FF = 0.72), respectively.

| S-EPMC3665963 | biostudies-other

Ternary Organic Solar Cells Based on a Wide-Bandgap Polymer with Enhanced Power Conversion Efficiencies.

Project description:A low-bandgap acceptor (ITIC) was added to a binary system composed of a wide-bandgap polymer (PBT-OTT) and an acceptor (PC71BM) to increase the light harvesting efficiency of the associated organic solar cells (OSCs). A ternary blend OSC with an acceptor ratio of PC71BM:ITIC = 8:2 was found to exhibit a power conversion efficiency of 8.18%, which is 18% higher than that of the binary OSC without ITIC. This improvement is mainly due to the enhanced light absorption and optimized film morphology that result from ITIC addition. Furthermore, an energy level cascade forms in the blend that ensures efficient charge transfer, and bimolecular and trap-assisted recombination is suppressed. Thus the use of ternary blend systems provides an effective strategy for the development of efficient single-junction OSCs.

| S-EPMC6700133 | biostudies-literature

Mediated Non-geminate Recombination in Ternary Organic Solar Cells Through a Liquid Crystal Guest Donor.

Project description:The approach via ternary blends prompts the increase of absorbed photon density and resultant photocurrent enhancement in organic solar cells (OSCs). In contrast to actively reported high efficiency ternary OSCs, little is known about charge recombination properties and carrier loss mechanisms in these emerging devices. Here, through introducing a small molecule donor BTR as a guest component to the PCE-10:PC71BM binary system, we show that photocarrier losses via recombination are mitigated with respect the binary OSCs, owing to a reduced bimolecular recombination. The gain of the fill factor in ternary devices are reconciled by the change in equilibrium between charge exaction and recombination in the presence of BTR toward the former process. With these modifications, the power conversion efficiency in ternary solar cells receives a boost from 8.8 (PCE-10:PC71BM) to 10.88%. We further found that the voltage losses in the ternary cell are slightly suppressed, related to the rising charge transfer-state energy. These benefits brought by the third guest donor are important for attaining improvements on key photophysical processes governing the photovoltaic efficiencies in organic ternary solar cells.

| S-EPMC7026665 | biostudies-literature

Donor Derivative Incorporation: An Effective Strategy toward High Performance All-Small-Molecule Ternary Organic Solar Cells.

Project description:Thick-film all-small-molecule (ASM) organic solar cells (OSCs) are preferred for large-scale fabrication with printing techniques due to the distinct advantages of monodispersion, easy purification, and negligible batch-to-batch variation. However, ASM OSCs are typically constrained by the morphology aspect to achieve high efficiency and maintain thick film simultaneously. Specifically, synchronously manipulating crystallinity, domain size, and phase segregation to a suitable level are extremely challenging. Herein, a derivative of benzodithiophene terthiophene rhodanine (BTR) (a successful small molecule donor for thick-film OSCs), namely, BTR-OH, is synthesized with similar chemical structure and absorption but less crystallinity relative to BTR, and is employed as a third component to construct BTR:BTR-OH:PC71BM ternary devices. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 10.14% and fill factor (FF) of 74.2% are successfully obtained in ?300 nm OSC, which outperforms BTR:PC71BM (9.05% and 69.6%) and BTR-OH:PC71BM (8.00% and 65.3%) counterparts, and stands among the top values for thick-film ASM OSCs. The performance enhancement results from the enhanced absorption, suppressed bimolecular/trap-assisted recombination, improved charge extraction, optimized domain size, and suitable crystallinity. These findings demonstrate that the donor derivative featuring similar chemical structure but different crystallinity provides a promising third component guideline for high-performance ternary ASM OSCs.

| S-EPMC6839630 | biostudies-literature

All-small-molecule organic solar cells with over 14% efficiency by optimizing hierarchical morphologies.

Project description:The high efficiency all-small-molecule organic solar cells (OSCs) normally require optimized morphology in their bulk heterojunction active layers. Herein, a small-molecule donor is designed and synthesized, and single-crystal structural analyses reveal its explicit molecular planarity and compact intermolecular packing. A promising narrow bandgap small-molecule with absorption edge of more than 930?nm along with our home-designed small molecule is selected as electron acceptors. To the best of our knowledge, the binary all-small-molecule OSCs achieve the highest efficiency of 14.34% by optimizing their hierarchical morphologies, in which the donor or acceptor rich domains with size up to ca. 70?nm, and the donor crystals of tens of nanometers, together with the donor-acceptor blending, are proved coexisting in the hierarchical large domain. All-small-molecule photovoltaic system shows its promising for high performance OSCs, and our study is likely to lead to insights in relations between bulk heterojunction structure and photovoltaic performance.

| S-EPMC6879588 | biostudies-literature

Emphasizing the Operational Role of a Novel Graphene-Based Ink into High Performance Ternary Organic Solar Cells.

Project description:A novel solution-processed, graphene-based material was synthesized by treating graphene oxide (GO) with 2,5,7-trinitro-9-oxo-fluorenone-4-carboxylic acid (TNF-COOH) moieties, via simple synthetic routes. The yielded molecule N-[(carbamoyl-GO)ethyl]-N'-[(carbamoyl)-(2,5,7-trinitro-9-oxo-fluorene)] (GO-TNF) was thoroughly characterized and it was shown that it presents favorable highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy levels to function as a bridge component between the polymeric donor poly({4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene-2,6-diyl}{3-fluoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl)carbonyl] thieno[3,4-b]thiophenediyl}) (PTB7) and the fullerene derivative acceptor [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric-acid-methylester (PC71BM). In this context, a GO-TNF based ink was prepared and directly incorporated within the binary photoactive layer, in different volume ratios (1%-3% ratio to the blend) for the effective realization of inverted ternary organic solar cells (OSCs) of the structure ITO/PFN/PTB7:GO-TNF:PC71BM/MoO3/Al. The addition of 2% v/v GO-TNF ink led to a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.71% that was enhanced by ~13% as compared to the reference cell.

| S-EPMC7023384 | biostudies-literature

ZnO/CuO/M (M = Ag, Au) Hierarchical Nanostructure by Successive Photoreduction Process for Solar Hydrogen Generation.

Project description:To date, solar energy generation devices have been widely studied to meet a clean and sustainable energy source. Among them, water splitting photoelectrochemical cell is regarded as a promising energy generation way for splitting water molecules and generating hydrogen by sunlight. While many nanostructured metal oxides are considered as a candidate, most of them have an improper bandgap structure lowering energy transition efficiency. Herein, we introduce a novel wet-based, successive photoreduction process that can improve charge transfer efficiency by surface plasmon effect for a solar-driven water splitting device. The proposed process enables to fabricate ZnO/CuO/Ag or ZnO/CuO/Au hierarchical nanostructure, having an enhanced electrical, optical, photoelectrochemical property. The fabricated hierarchical nanostructures are demonstrated as a photocathode in the photoelectrochemical cell and characterized by using various analytic tools.

| S-EPMC5977337 | biostudies-literature

Impact of Electrodes on Recombination in Bulk Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells.

Project description:In recent years, the efficiency of organic solar cells (OSCs) has increased to more than 13%, although different barriers are on the way for reaching higher efficiencies. One crucial barrier is the recombination of charge carriers, which can either occur as the bulk recombination of photogenerated charges or the recombination of photogenerated charges and electrodic induced charges (EICs). This work studies the impact of EICs on the recombination lifetime in OSCs. To this end, the net recombination lifetime of photogenerated charge carriers in the presence of EICs is measured by means of conventional and newly developed transient photovoltage techniques. Moreover, a new approach has been introduced to exclusively measure the bulk recombination lifetime, i.e., in the absence of EICs; this approach was conducted by depositing transparent insulating layers on both sides of the OSC active layer. An examination of these approaches on OSCs with different active layer materials, thicknesses, and varying light intensities determined that the EICs can only reduce the recombination lifetime of the photogenerated charges in OSCs with very weak recombination strength. This work supports that for OSCs with highly reduced recombination strength, eliminating the recombination of photogenerated charges and EICs is critical for achieving better performance. Therefore, the use of a proper blocking layer suppresses EIC recombination in systems with very weak recombination.

| S-EPMC5997384 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data