TY - JOUR
T1 - Voltage Losses in Organic Solar Cells
T2 - Understanding the Contributions of Intramolecular Vibrations to Nonradiative Recombinations
AU - Chen, Xian Kai
AU - Brédas, Jean Luc
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge the financial support from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology and, at the Georgia Institute of Technology, from the Office of Naval Research (Award No. N00014-17-1-2208). The authors are grateful to the KAUST IT Research Computing Team and Supercomputing Laboratory for providing continuous assistance as well as computational and storage resources.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
PY - 2018/3/26
Y1 - 2018/3/26
N2 - The large voltage losses usually encountered in organic solar cells significantly limit the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of these devices, with the result that the current highest PCE values in single-junction organic photovoltaic remain smaller than for other solar cell technologies, such as crystalline silicon or perovskite solar cells. In particular, the nonradiative recombinations to the electronic ground state from the lowest-energy charge-transfer (CT) states at the donor–acceptor interfaces in the active layer of organic devices, are responsible for a significant part of the voltage losses. Here, to better comprehend the nonradiative voltage loss mechanisms, a fully quantum-mechanical rate formula is employed within the framework of time-dependent perturbation theory, combined with density functional theory. The objective is to uncover the specific contributions of intramolecular vibrations to the CT-state nonradiative recombinations in several model systems, which include small-molecule and polymer donors as well as fullerene and nonfullerene acceptors.
AB - The large voltage losses usually encountered in organic solar cells significantly limit the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of these devices, with the result that the current highest PCE values in single-junction organic photovoltaic remain smaller than for other solar cell technologies, such as crystalline silicon or perovskite solar cells. In particular, the nonradiative recombinations to the electronic ground state from the lowest-energy charge-transfer (CT) states at the donor–acceptor interfaces in the active layer of organic devices, are responsible for a significant part of the voltage losses. Here, to better comprehend the nonradiative voltage loss mechanisms, a fully quantum-mechanical rate formula is employed within the framework of time-dependent perturbation theory, combined with density functional theory. The objective is to uncover the specific contributions of intramolecular vibrations to the CT-state nonradiative recombinations in several model systems, which include small-molecule and polymer donors as well as fullerene and nonfullerene acceptors.
KW - charge-transfer states
KW - intramolecular vibrations
KW - nonradiative voltage loss
KW - organic solar cells
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U2 - 10.1002/aenm.201702227
DO - 10.1002/aenm.201702227
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85038083044
SN - 1614-6832
VL - 8
JO - Advanced Energy Materials
JF - Advanced Energy Materials
IS - 9
M1 - 1702227
ER -