Nanosociety Meeting Friday @ 12:15pm, McCullough 115: Intercalation in polymer:fullerene organic solar cells

Nicky Cates will discuss how the intercalation of buckyballs affect the morphology and performance of organic solar cells. The talk will began at 12:15pm in McCullough 115. Pizza will be served. 

Intercalation in polymer:fullerene organic solar cells

Nicky Cates

Material Science and Engineering

McGehee Group

Polymer:fullerene bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells have achieved power conversion efficiencies up to 7.9% and are attracting a great deal of attention as a potential low-cost alternative to traditional inorganic photovoltaics.  Fullerene intercalation between the side chains of conjugated polymers has recently been demonstrated in some polymer:fullerene BHJ solar cells.  We investigate intercalation in the crystalline polymer (pBTTT) and the amorphous polymer (MDMO-PPV) using a variety of techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), photoluminescence (PL) and current-voltage measurements.  This work demonstrates that intercalation can be controlled by adjusting the fullerene size and side-chain branching, clarifies the effect of intercalation on solar-cell properties and explains why intercalation may be responsible for the significant increase in the MDMO-PPV hole mobility when it is blended with phenyl-c61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC₆₁BM).