Improving the Efficiency of Organic Solar Cells upon Addition of Polyvinylpyridine

Materials

Rita Rodrigues¹  Rui Meira¹  Quirina Ferreira¹  Ana Charas¹  Jorge Morgado¹ 

[1] Instituto de Telecomunicações, Avenida Rovisco Pais, P-1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal; E-Mails:

关键词: polymer blends and alloys;    organic photovoltaics;    polyvinylpyridine;   

DOI  :  10.3390/ma7128189

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

We report on the efficiency improvement of organic solar cells (OPVs) based on the low energy gap polyfluorene derivative, APFO-3, and the soluble C₆₀ fullerene PCBM, upon addition of a residual amount of poly (4-vinylpyridine) (PVP). We find that the addition of 1% by weight of PVP with respect to the APFO-3 content leads to an increase of efficiency from 2.4% to 2.9%. Modifications in the phase separation details of the active layer were investigated as a possible origin of the efficiency increase. At high concentrations of PVP, the blend morphology is radically altered as observed by Atomic Force Microscopy. Although the use of low molecular weight additives is a routine method to improve OPVs efficiency, this report shows that inert polymers, in terms of optical and charge transport properties, may also improve the performance of polymer-based solar cells.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.