title: Tailoring Nanoscale Morphology of Polymer:Fullerene Blends Using Electrostatic Field.
abstract: To tailor the nanomorphology in polymer/fullerene blends, we study the effect of electrostatic field (E-field) on the solidification of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2, 5-diyl) (P3HT):[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC60BM) bulk heterojunction (BHJ). In addition to control; wet P3HT:PC60BM thin films were exposed to E-field of Van de Graaff (VDG) generator at three different directions-horizontal (H), tilted (T), and vertical (V)-relative to the plane of the substrate. Surface and bulk characterizations of the field-treated BHJs affirmed that fullerene molecules can easily penetrate the spaghetti-like P3HT and move up and down following the E-field. Using E-field treatment, we achieved favorable morphologies with efficient charge separation, transport, and collection. We improve; (1) the hole mobility values up to 19.4 × 10-4± 1.6 × 10-4cm2V-1s-1and (2) the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of conventional and inverted OPVs up to 2.58 ± 0.02% and 4.1 ± 0.40%, respectively. This E-field approach can serve as a new morphology-tuning technique, which is generally applicable to other polymer-fullerene systems.
authors.affiliation: Physics Department, Mansoura University , Mansoura 35516, Egypt.
authors.forename: Moneim
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2125-0394
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Elshobaki
authors.forename: Ryan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Gebhardt
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Carr
authors.forename: William
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Lindemann
authors.affiliation: Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy , Ames, Iowa 50011-3111, United States.
authors.forename: Wenjie
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Grieser
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, South Dakota State University , Brookings, South Dakota 57007, United States.
authors.forename: Swaminathan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Venkatesan
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, South Dakota State University , Brookings, South Dakota 57007, United States.
authors.forename: Evan
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ngo
authors.forename: Ujjal
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Bhattacharjee
authors.affiliation: X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory , Argonne, Illinois 60439, United States.
authors.forename: Joseph
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Strzalka
authors.affiliation: X-ray Science Division, Argonne National Laboratory , Argonne, Illinois 60439, United States.
authors.forename: Zhang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, South Dakota State University , Brookings, South Dakota 57007, United States.
authors.forename: Qiquan
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Qiao
authors.forename: Jacob
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Petrich
authors.affiliation: Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy , Ames, Iowa 50011-3111, United States.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Vaknin
authors.forename: Sumit
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chaudhary
keywords: P3HT; Van de Graaff OPVs; electrostatic field; fullerene; nanomorphology