In a recent study published in Small, the researchers of CNR-ISM have investigated the optoelectronic properties and electron-hole separation dynamics in the organic blend PCE10:FOIC. By combining steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopies with DFT calculations, the researchers observed a significant reduction in the exciton-exciton recombination rate in the FOIC acceptor when incorporated into a blend with PCE10, attributable to charge separation within the active material. This charge separation, driven by hole transfer from the acceptor to the donor, occurs with a time constant of just 1.3 picoseconds and an efficiency of approximately 60%.
These findings provide valuable guidance for designing more efficient interfaces in organic photovoltaic materials, paving the way for flexible and semi-transparent solar cells with significantly improved energy performance.
This work is the result of a collaboration between CNR-ISM and the Centre for Hybrid and Organic Solar Energy - CHOSE at the University of Rome "Tor Vergata" (Italy), the Dept. of High Throughput Methods in Photovoltaics and Forschungszentrum Jülich of the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI-ERN) (Germany), the Institute Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET) at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany), the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment - Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Princeton University (USA), and the Chemistry Research Laboratory - Dept. of Chemistry at the Oxford University (UK).