Issue 5, 2013

Detection and role of trace impurities in high-performance organic solar cells

Abstract

Trace impurities in organic solar cells, such as those from residual catalyst material in conjugated polymers, are often ignored but are known to deleteriously affect device performance. Batch-to-batch variations in the nature and quantity of such impurities leads to widespread issues with irreproducible optoelectronic function, yet to date no technique has emerged that is reliably capable of identifying the character of impurities or their concentration in organic photovoltaic active layer blends. Here we focus on state-of-the-art, high-performance bulk heterojunction blends and show that synchrotron-based X-ray fluorescence can detect and quantify trace concentrations of metal impurities in these systems. Adopting a strategy of artificially introducing known quantities of additional catalyst into polymer/fullerene blends, we identify both the threshold concentration at which performance degrades and the mechanism for the degradation. With the knowledge of a target impurity concentration and a technique in hand to accurately measure their presence, researchers can implement materials preparation processes to achieve consistent, high performance in organic solar cells.

Graphical abstract: Detection and role of trace impurities in high-performance organic solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Feb 2013
Accepted
18 Mar 2013
First published
18 Mar 2013

Energy Environ. Sci., 2013,6, 1513-1520

Detection and role of trace impurities in high-performance organic solar cells

M. P. Nikiforov, B. Lai, W. Chen, S. Chen, R. D. Schaller, J. Strzalka, J. Maser and S. B. Darling, Energy Environ. Sci., 2013, 6, 1513 DOI: 10.1039/C3EE40556G

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