Suchergebnisse

Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) has been successfully used as the cathode interfacial layer (CIL) in organic solar cells (OSCs) for work function (W-F) modification. However, detailed insight into the effect of a PVP interlayer on the physicochemical properties of the indium tin oxide (ITO) electrode in inverted OSCs (I-OSCs) is still largely absent. Herein, the ITO/PVP interface is investigated by photoelectron spectroscopy and the mechanisms for the energy level alignment of PVP on different substrates in general are unraveled. The results indicate that the dipole formation that reduces the W-F is driven by not only the directional intrinsic molecular dipole moments associated with the gamma-lactam of PVP, but also an additional dipole step with the same direction created by the image charges in the contacting (semi-)conductor layer. In addition, high-performance inverted OSCs (I-OSCs) are achieved by introducing a self-assembled ultrathin PVP layer using a simple immersion method. This work provides enhanced understanding of the PVP-based CIL and demonstrates its great potential in I-OSC fabrication, which can pave the way to simplified manufacturing of low-cost and large-area devices in organic electronic technologies. ; Funding Agencies|Swedish Energy AgencySwedish Energy Agency [45411-1]; Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research Council [2016-05498, 2016-05990]; STINT grant [CH2017-7163]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University [2009 00971]; Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC) [KAW 2018.0452]

Matched energy level alignment is a key requirement for efficient organic devices such as organic light-emitting diodes, photovoltaics, and field-effect transistors. The effect of thermal stress/annealing on energy level alignment and related properties of the devices are less discussed compared to the extensively explored effect on morphology and corresponding device performance. Here all polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) are employed to study thermal annealing effects on energy level alignment and the corresponding effect on the device properties of the all-PSCs. It is found that optimized energy level alignment can be achieved by thermal annealing. An interface dipole layer at the donor/acceptor interface is introduced by energy level realignment that assists charge generation by reducing geminate recombination so that the voltage loss is dramatically reduced, improving the performance of the all-PSCs. ; Funding Agencies|Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation project "Tail of the Sun"; Swedish Research CouncilSwedish Research Council [2016-05498]; Swedish Foundation for Strategic ResearchSwedish Foundation for Strategic Research [SE13-0060]; Swedish Energy AgencySwedish Energy Agency [45411-1]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University (Faculty Grant SFO Mat LiU) [2009 00971]

Energy level alignment (ELA) at donor-acceptor heterojunctions is of vital importance yet largely undetermined in organic solar cells. Here, authors determine the heterojunction ELA with (mono) layer-by-layer precision to understand the co-existence of efficient charge. Energy level alignment (ELA) at donor (D) -acceptor (A) heterojunctions is essential for understanding the charge generation and recombination process in organic photovoltaic devices. However, the ELA at the D-A interfaces is largely underdetermined, resulting in debates on the fundamental operating mechanisms of high-efficiency non-fullerene organic solar cells. Here, we systematically investigate ELA and its depth-dependent variation of a range of donor/non-fullerene-acceptor interfaces by fabricating and characterizing D-A quasi bilayers and planar bilayers. In contrast to previous assumptions, we observe significant vacuum level (VL) shifts existing at the D-A interfaces, which are demonstrated to be abrupt, extending over only 1-2 layers at the heterojunctions, and are attributed to interface dipoles induced by D-A electrostatic potential differences. The VL shifts result in reduced interfacial energetic offsets and increased charge transfer (CT) state energies which reconcile the conflicting observations of large energy level offsets inferred from neat films and large CT energies of donor - non-fullerene-acceptor systems. ; Funding Agencies|Swedish Research Council [2016-05498, 2016-05990, 2020-04538, 2018-06048, 2018-07152]; Swedish Energy Agency [45411-1]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linkoping University [2009 00971]; Wallenberg Wood Science Center (WWSC); Stiftelsen for Strategisk Forskning through a Future Research Leader program [FFL18-0322]; Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems [2018-04969]; Formas [2019-02496]