Interface-engineering additives of poly(oxyethylene tridecyl ether) for low-band gap polymer solar cells consisting of PCDTBT:PCBM70 bulk-heterojunction layers.

We herein report on the improved photovoltaic (PV) effects of using a polymer bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) layer that consists of a low-band gap electron donor polymer of poly(N-9'-heptadecanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4',7'-di-2-thienyl-2',1',3'-benzothiadiazole)) (PCDTBT) and an acceptor of [6,6]-phenyl C71 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM70), doped with an interface-engineering surfactant additive of poly(oxyethylene tridecyl ether) (PTE). The presence of an interface-engineering additive in the PV layer results in excellent performance; the addition of PTE to a PCDTBT:PCBM70 system produces a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.0%, which is much higher than that of a reference device without the additive (4.9%). We attribute this improvement to an increased charge carrier lifetime, which is likely to be the result of the presence of PTE molecules oriented at the interfaces between the BHJ PV layer and the anode and cathode, as well as at the interfaces between the phase-separated BHJ domains. Our results suggest that the incorporation of the PTE interface-engineering additive in the PCDTBT:PCBM70 PV layer results in a functional composite system that shows considerable promise for use in efficient polymer BHJ PV cells.

Photovoltaic characteristics of polymer solar cells fabricated by pre-metered coating process.

We present the results of a study of flat and uniform poly(3-hexylthiophene):methanofullerene bulk-heterojunction photovoltaic (PV) layers that were produced by a simple pre-metered horizontal-dipping process for the fabrication of polymer solar cells (PSCs). It is shown that this process can produce high quality and thin films by utilizing the downstream meniscus of the solution, which can be controlled by adjusting experimental parameters of the gap height and the carrying speed. It is also shown that the produced PV film exhibits high power conversion efficiency of ca. 4.2% with a large active area. It was demonstrated that this pre-metered process for solution coating may be promising for achieving highly efficient, reliable, and large-area PSCs.

Photonic crystal film with three alternating layers for simultaneous R, G, B multi-mode photonic band-gaps.

We studied 1-dimensional (1-D) photonic crystal (PC) films with three alternating layers to investigate multi-mode photonic band-gaps (PBGs) at red, green, and blue color regions. From simulations, it was shown that PCs with three alternating layered elements of [a/b/c] structure have sharp PBGs at the three color regions with the central wavelengths of 459 nm, 527 nm, and 626 nm, simultaneously. Experimentally, it was proven that red, green, and blue PBGs were generated clearly by the PCs, which were made of multilayers of [SiO(2)/Ta(2)O(5)/TiO(2)], based on the simulation. It was also shown that the measured wavelengths of the PBGs corresponded exactly to those of the simulated results. Moreover, it was demonstrated that a 1-D PC of [a/b/c] structure can be used for making white organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) with improved color rendering index (CRI) for color display or lighting.