The Crucial Role of Quaternary Mixtures of Active Layer in Organic Indoor Solar Cells

Premkumar Vincent, Jae Won Shim, Jaewon Jang, In Man Kang, Philippe Lang, Jin-Hyuk Bae and Hyeok Kim
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Premkumar Vincent: School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University, 80 Daehakro, Bukgu, Daegu 41566, Korea
Jae Won Shim: Research Center for Photoenergy Harvesting & Conversion Technology (phct), Division of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Dongguk University, Seoul 04620, Korea
Jaewon Jang: School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University, 80 Daehakro, Bukgu, Daegu 41566, Korea
In Man Kang: School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University, 80 Daehakro, Bukgu, Daegu 41566, Korea
Philippe Lang: ITODYS University Paris Diderot CNRS UMR 7086 (Paris 7), 75013 Paris, France
Jin-Hyuk Bae: School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University, 80 Daehakro, Bukgu, Daegu 41566, Korea
Hyeok Kim: Department of Electrical Engineering, Engineering Research Institute (ERI), Gyeongsang National University, 501 Jinjudaero, Jinju, Gyeongnam 52828, Korea

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 10, 1-9

Abstract: A bulk heterojunction (BHJ) consisting of more than one donor/acceptor is one plausible way to improve the charge transport and/or the spectral absorption range in organic solar cells. Ternary and quaternary solar cells have shown promise in this regard. However, quaternary structures have not yet been intensively tested under indoor lighting conditions. A finite-difference time-domain (FDTD)-based simulation was used to solve for the electric field intensity distribution inside a quaternary photovoltaic device illuminated by 500 lx indoor white light emitting diodes (LEDs). We found that quaternary indoor photovoltaics (IPVs) showed peculiarly high oscillations in the simulated ideal short-circuit current density (J sc,ideal ). Here, we simulated the electric field intensity inside the photovoltaic, compared it to single BHJ photovoltaics, and deduced that the electric field intensity inside the active layer of the IPV was highly sensitive to its thickness due to interference between the incident light and the light reflecting from the back electrode. We also found that Poly[N-9′-hepta-decanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4′,7′-di-2-thienyl-2′,1′,3′-benzothiadiazole)] (PCDTBT) acted as the primary light absorber in the quaternary blend while poly({4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-2,6-diyl}{3-fluoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl)carbonyl]thieno[3,4-b]thiophenediyl}) (PTB7) acted primarily as a cascade energy level and secondarily as a supplementary light absorber.

Keywords: quaternary; organic; finite-difference time-domain; optical modeling; layer thickness optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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