TY - JOUR
T1 - Concurrently pumped ultrasonic spray coating for donor:acceptor and thickness optimization of organic solar cells
AU - Tait, Jeffrey G.
AU - Rand, Barry P.
AU - Heremans, Paul
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors acknowledge helpful discussions with D. Cheyns, E. Voroshazi, and C. Girotto. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant No. 287818 of the X10D project, acknowledge the project ORGANEXT (EMR. INT4-1.2.-2009-04/054) under the program INTERREG IV-A Euregio Maas-Rijn.” J.G. Tait acknowledges partial funding from the Natural Sciences Engineering and Research Council of Canada.
PY - 2013/3
Y1 - 2013/3
N2 - We assess the utility of concurrent spray coating to efficiently screen and optimize solutions for organic solar cells. With this technique two independent solutions are coaxially pumped to the ultrasonic nozzle tip of the spray coater, where a micron-scale mist of droplets, each consisting of one of the two respective solutions with negligible mixing, is ejected toward the substrate. Concurrent spray coating is shown to allow the scanning of two important photoactive layer parameters: thickness, by concurrently diluting concentrated donor:acceptor (D:A) solution with pure solvent, and D:A ratio by concurrently spraying independent solutions of donor and acceptor. The assessment is done using the archetypal poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):(6,6)-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) system. By allowing the droplets to coalesce on the substrate prior to drying, the resulting film realizes a favorable morphology, confirmed via high-performance OSC devices, with a peak efficiency of 4.1%, 72% fill factor, 9.3 mA/cm2 short circuit current density, and a 620 mV open circuit voltage.
AB - We assess the utility of concurrent spray coating to efficiently screen and optimize solutions for organic solar cells. With this technique two independent solutions are coaxially pumped to the ultrasonic nozzle tip of the spray coater, where a micron-scale mist of droplets, each consisting of one of the two respective solutions with negligible mixing, is ejected toward the substrate. Concurrent spray coating is shown to allow the scanning of two important photoactive layer parameters: thickness, by concurrently diluting concentrated donor:acceptor (D:A) solution with pure solvent, and D:A ratio by concurrently spraying independent solutions of donor and acceptor. The assessment is done using the archetypal poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):(6,6)-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) system. By allowing the droplets to coalesce on the substrate prior to drying, the resulting film realizes a favorable morphology, confirmed via high-performance OSC devices, with a peak efficiency of 4.1%, 72% fill factor, 9.3 mA/cm2 short circuit current density, and a 620 mV open circuit voltage.
KW - Donor:acceptor ratio optimization
KW - Organic photovoltaics
KW - P3HT:PCBM
KW - Solution processing
KW - Spray coating
KW - Thickness optimization
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U2 - 10.1016/j.orgel.2013.01.023
DO - 10.1016/j.orgel.2013.01.023
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84875198104
SN - 1566-1199
VL - 14
SP - 1002
EP - 1008
JO - Organic Electronics: physics, materials, applications
JF - Organic Electronics: physics, materials, applications
IS - 3
ER -