Spectroscopy of Charge-Transfer States in Non-fullerene Acceptor Organic Solar Cells

Abstract

The performance of non-fullerene acceptor (NFA)- based organic solar cells (OSC) has shown continuous increase in recent years, reaching power-conversion efficiencies up to 17% through the design and synthesis of efficient acceptor materials. Recent research is directed towards achieving higher efficiency of OSC, which is limited by the open-circuit voltage (Voc) which is lower than the Voc values achieved in inorganic or perovskites solar cells with comparable bandgaps. In this work, voltage losses in NFA based OSC were calculated by investigating charge-transfer state energy (ECT) using electroluminescence spectroscopy and sensitive external quantum efficiency in three polymer:non-fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells. PCE10:ITIC device acquired the highest ECT with a Voc of 0.82V, and a a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.91%. While PCE10:O-IDTBR obtained the highest Voc of 1.03V, a PCE of 8.02% compared to PCE10:O-IDTBCN solar cell that has a lower Voc of 0.73V with a PCE of 7.98%. Both radiative and non-radiative voltage losses were calculated. In this thesis, the high open circuit voltage of PCE10:O-IDTBR is explained by the low non-radiative voltage losses compared to PCE10:O-IDTBCN and PCE10:ITIC devices.