Efficient charge generation by relaxed charge-transfer states at organic interfaces
Type
ArticleAuthors
Vandewal, KoenAlbrecht, Steve N.
Hoke, Eric T.
Graham, Kenneth
Widmer, Johannes
Douglas, Jessica D.
Schubert, Marcel

Mateker, William R.
Bloking, Jason T.
Burkhard, George F.
Sellinger, Alan

Frechet, Jean

Amassian, Aram

Riede, Moritz Kilian
McGehee, Michael D.
Neher, Dieter

Salleo, Alberto
KAUST Department
Chemical Science ProgramKAUST Solar Center (KSC)
Material Science and Engineering Program
Office of the VP
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics Group
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Date
2013-11-17Online Publication Date
2013-11-17Print Publication Date
2014-01Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/563088
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Interfaces between organic electron-donating (D) and electron-accepting (A) materials have the ability to generate charge carriers on illumination. Efficient organic solar cells require a high yield for this process, combined with a minimum of energy losses. Here, we investigate the role of the lowest energy emissive interfacial charge-transfer state (CT1) in the charge generation process. We measure the quantum yield and the electric field dependence of charge generation on excitation of the charge-transfer (CT) state manifold via weakly allowed, low-energy optical transitions. For a wide range of photovoltaic devices based on polymer:fullerene, small-molecule:C60 and polymer:polymer blends, our study reveals that the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) is essentially independent of whether or not D, A or CT states with an energy higher than that of CT1 are excited. The best materials systems show an IQE higher than 90% without the need for excess electronic or vibrational energy. © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited.Citation
Vandewal, K., Albrecht, S., Hoke, E. T., Graham, K. R., Widmer, J., Douglas, J. D., … Salleo, A. (2013). Efficient charge generation by relaxed charge-transfer states at organic interfaces. Nature Materials, 13(1), 63–68. doi:10.1038/nmat3807Sponsors
This publication was supported by the Center for Advanced Molecular Photovoltaics (Award No KUS-C1-015-21) and the Department of Energy, Laboratory Directed Research and Development funding, under contract DE-AC02-76SF00515. The PCDTBT used in this work was provided by St-Jean Photochemicals. M. K. R. acknowledges financial support by the BMBF through project 03IP602 and J. W. acknowledges support from the Heinrich-Boll-Stiftung. S.A. and M.S. acknowledge financial support by the BMBF within PVcomB (FKZ 03IS2151D) and the DFG (SPP 1355). D.N. thanks the DFG for financially supporting a travel grant. K.R.G. and A.A. acknowledge SABIC for a post-doctoral fellowship. The authors thank J. Kurpiers for technical assistance with the TDCF set-up.Publisher
Springer NatureJournal
Nature MaterialsDOI
10.1038/nmat3807PubMed ID
24240240ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1038/nmat3807
Scopus Count
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