Macromolecules, Vol.49, No.14, 5137-5144, 2016
Exploiting the Combined Influence of Morphology and Energy Cascades in Ternary Blend Organic Solar Cells Based on Block Copolymer Additives
In recent works, we demonstrated that donor-b-acceptor block copolymer compatibilizers can be utilized in donor acceptor blends of conjugated homopolymer donors and PCBM acceptors to target equilibrium morphologies containing the interconnected, cocontinuous structures that are desired for efficient bulk heterojunction devices. In this article, we utilize a combination of morphology and device-level simulations to demonstrate that by tuning the photo electronic properties of the block copolymer additives, the device characteristics of such ternary blend systems can be made to outperform the idealized morphologies envisioned in donor acceptor systems. Explicitly, we propose that by appropriately choosing the HOMO and LUMO energy levels of the block copolymer additives, an energy cascade can be exploited to reduce charge recombination and increase fill factors. The resulting device performance of such ternary blends reflects the combined influence of morphology and energy cascades, and in some instances, ternary blend morphologies can outperform even the idealized columnar morphologies proposed for bulk heterojunction devices. Together, our results suggest that the use of block copolymer additives in ternary blend systems may represent a unique strategy to exploit the combined influence of photoelectronic properties and morphology on the device characteristics.