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Organic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells Based on P3HT and Anthracene-Containing PPE-PPV: Fabrication, Characterization and Modeling

SAFAE AAZOU1,2,3, ASMAA IBRAL2, MATTHEW S. WHITE3, MARTIN KALTENBRUNNER4

Affiliation

  1. Laboratory for Solid State Physics, Interfaces and Nanostructures, Physics Department, Liege University, Liege, Belgium.
  2. Laboratory of Instrumentation, Measure and Control, Physics Department, Chouaïb Doukkali University, El Jadida, Morocco.
  3. Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS), Department of Physical Chemistry, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenbergerstrasse 69, A-4040 Linz, Austria.
  4. Department of Soft Matter Physics, Johannes Kepler University, Altenbergerstrasse 69, 4040 Linz, Austria.

Abstract

In this paper, a full comparative study of two different kinds of organic bulk heterojunction solar cells (OBHJ-SCs) is presented. The OBHJ-SC of the first kind is fabricated with the commonly used polymer: poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT). The second one is based on a recently synthesized anthracene-containing poly(phenylene-ethynylene)-alt-poly(phenylenevinylene) (PPE-PPV) bearing randomly distributed segments of octyloxy and segments of 2-ethylhexyloxy side chains and denoted AnE-PVstat. First, devices fabrication method is presented. Then, solar cells are characterized in dark and under AM 1.5 illumination. The incident photon conversion efficiencies (IPCE) of best cells are measured to calculate external quantum efficiencies (EQE). Next, an electronic circuit, containing photocurrent generator, non-ideal diode with its reverse saturation current and its ideality factor, series and shunt resistances, is adopted to model the fabricated solar cells. Afterwards, different methods are used to determine each solar cell model physical parameters from the current–voltage characteristics. In this way, model physical parameters extraction of AnE-PVstat based OBHJ-SC is done for the first time and an efficiency of around 4% is evidenced. Finally, a comparison between the performances of each kind of OBHJ-SC is achieved..

Keywords

Organic bulk heterojunction solar cell, Incident photon conversion efficiency, External quantum efficiency, Model physical parameters, Parameters extraction methods.

Submitted at: April 17, 2013
Accepted at: June 12, 2013

Citation

SAFAE AAZOU, ASMAA IBRAL, MATTHEW S. WHITE, MARTIN KALTENBRUNNER, Organic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells Based on P3HT and Anthracene-Containing PPE-PPV: Fabrication, Characterization and Modeling, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials Vol. 15, Iss. 5-6, pp. 395-404 (2013)