Determination of fullerene scattering length density: a critical parameter for understanding the fullerene distribution in bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaic devices.
Fullerene derivatives are commonly used as electron acceptors in combination with (macro)molecular electron donors in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. Understanding the BHJ structure at different electron donor/acceptor ratios is critical to the continued improvement and development of OPVs. The high neutron scattering length densities (SLDs) of the fullerenes provide effective contrast for probing the distribution of the fullerene within the blend in a nondestructive way. However, recent neutron scattering studies on BHJ films have reported a wide range of SLDs ((3.6-4.4) × 10(-6) Å(-2)) for the fullerenes 60-PCBM and 70-PCBM, leading to differing interpretations of their distribution in thin films. In this article, we describe an approach for determining more precisely the scattering length densities of the fullerenes within a polymer matrix in order to accurately quantify their distribution within the active layers of OPV devices by neutron scattering techniques.
Centre for Organic Photonics & Electronics, The University of Queensland , St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia.
Andrew J
AJ
Clulow
Ardalan
A
Armin
Kwan H
KH
Lee
Ajay K
AK
Pandey
Chen
C
Tao
Marappan
M
Velusamy
Michael
M
James
Andrew
A
Nelson
Paul L
PL
Burn
Ian R
IR
Gentle
Paul
P
Meredith