Surface hopping simulations on charge separation in an organic donor–acceptor system

Abstract

Charge separation in organic solar cells is a long-lasting and heavily debated issue. Here, we use the surface hopping method based on the Pariser–Parr–Pople (PPP) Hamiltonian and configuration interaction singles (CIS) approximation to simulate the charge separation process in an organic donor–acceptor system. The system is composed of one donor polymer chain and four acceptor polymer chains, and they are all stacked face-to-face. We let the system to relax from a photoexcited state, and then we observed that the electron is transferred from the donor chain to different acceptor chains and the hole is left on the donor chain, forming polaron pairs with different electron–hole distances. By performing statistical analysis on a number of trajectories, we found that the electron and the hole are fully separated before the system relaxes to its lowest excited state. The yield of free charges shows a significant dependence on the donor–acceptor band offset which provides the driving force for charge separation, while showing negligible dependence on the photoexcitation energy. The external electric field has a remarkable effect on the yield of free charges.