Morphological characterization of fullerene and fullerene-free organic photovoltaics by combined real and reciprocal space techniques

Published

May 26, 2017

Author(s)

Donglin Zhao, Qinghe Wu, Luping Yu, Harald Ade, Dean DeLongchamp, Lee J. Richter, Subhrangsu Mukherjee, Andrew Herzing

Abstract

Morphology can play a critical role in determining function in organic photovoltaic (OPV) systems. Recently molecular acceptors have showed promise to replace¬ fullerene derivatives as acceptor materials in bulk heterojunction solar cells and have achieved >10% efficiencies in single junction devices. The nearly identical mass/electron densities between the donor (polymer) and acceptor (molecule) materials results in poor material contrast compared to fullerene-based OPVs and therefore morphology characterization using techniques that rely on mass/electron density variations poses a challenge. This inhibits a fundamental understanding of the structure-property relationships for non-fullerene acceptor materials. We demonstrate that low angle annular dark field scanning transmission electron microscopy and resonant soft X-ray scattering form a set of complementary tools that can provide quantitative characterization of fullerene as well as non-fullerene based organic photovoltaic systems.

Citation

Journal of Materials Research

Volume

32

Issue

10

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2017.131

Local Download

Keywords

X-Ray scattering, photovoltaic, Resonant X-ray, fulleren, polymer

Citation

Zhao, D. , Wu, Q. , Yu, L. , Ade, H. , DeLongchamp, D. , Richter, L. , Mukherjee, S. and Herzing, A. (2017), Morphological characterization of fullerene and fullerene-free organic photovoltaics by combined real and reciprocal space techniques, Journal of Materials Research, [online], https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2017.131, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=922899 (Accessed October 11, 2025)