Advanced Functional Materials and Devices (AFMD) Group

Abstract:

We present two organic dimetal complexes Cr2(hpp)4 and W2(hpp)4 as n-dopants investigated in the model system of fullerene C60 for the application in organic electronic devices. Conductivity and Seebeck measurements on doped layers are carried out in vacuum at different doping concentrations and various substrate temperatures to compare the two dopants. Very high conductivities of up to 4 S/cm are achieved for both organic dopants. The thermal activation energy of the conductivity as well as the measured Seebeck coefficient are found to decrease with increasing doping concentration, indicating a shift of the Fermi level towards the electron transport level of the n-doped C60. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.

Abstract:

X-ray investigations on single crystals of a series of terminally dicyanovinyl-substituted quaterthiophenes and co-evaporated blend layers with C(60) give insight into molecular packing behavior and morphology, which are crucial parameters in the field of organic electronics. Structural characteristics on various levels and length scales are correlated with the photovoltaic performance of bulk heterojunction small-molecule organic solar cells.

Abstract:

In this work, we use different encapsulations to protect vacuum-evaporated small molecule organic solar cells with a simple p-i-i-stack for lifetime studies. Our devices use ZnPc and C60 as active materials. Lifetimes (T50) in a range from 300 h for un-encapsulated devices to 4000 h for glass-encapsulated have been observed. We use a model to distinguish between the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of the barrier and an additional WVTR of the aluminum top electrode. For all observed devices a loss of 50% of initial efficiency is observed when 10 mg m-2 water entered the device. The losses are related to a reduction of short circuit current density only, whereas open circuit voltage and fill factor remains unaffected. We relate this to an interaction of the water molecules with C60. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

Abstract:

The influence of film thickness, type of buffer underlayer, and deposition substrate temperature on the crystal structure, microstructure, and morphology of the films of dicyanovinyl-substituted sexithiophene with four butyl-chains (DCV6T-Bu 4) is investigated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray reflectivity methods. A neat Si wafer or a Si wafer covered by a 15 nm buffer underlayer of fullerene C 60 or 9,9-Bis[4-(N,N-bis-biphenyl-4- yl-amino)phenyl]-9H-fluorene (BPAPF) is used as a substrate. The crystalline nature and ordered molecular arrangement of the films are recorded down to 6 nm film thickness. By using substrates heated up to 90 °C during the film deposition, the size of the DCV6T-Bu 4 crystallites in direction perpendicular to the film surface increases up to value of the film thickness. With increasing deposition substrate temperature or film thickness, the DCV6T-Bu 4 film relaxes, resulting in reducing the interplane distances closer to the bulk values. For the films of the same thickness deposited at the same substrate temperature, the DCV6T-Bu 4 film relaxes for growth on Si to BPAPF to C 60. Thicker films grown at heated substrates are characterized by smaller density, higher roughness and crystallinity and better molecular ordering. A thin (up to about 6 nm-thick) intermediate layer with linear density-gradient is formed at the C 60/DCV6T-Bu 4 interface for the films with buffer C 60 layer. The XRD pattern of the DCV6T-Bu 4 powder is indexed using triclinic unit cell parameters. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Abstract:

Efficient single bulk heterojunction organic solar cells based on blends of a fluorinated zinc phthalocyanine as electron donor and fullerene C 60 as electron acceptor are reported. In comparison to the commonly used absorber zinc phthalocyanine, the fluorination of the molecule to F 4ZnPc leads to an increase in ionisation potential and subsequently to an improvement of about 170 mV in the open circuit voltage of organic solar cells, while the short circuit current density and fill factor remain nearly unchanged. Similar to ZnPc:C 60-based devices, the device characteristics of F 4ZnPc:C 60 solar cells can be further enhanced by improving the blend layer morphology by substrate heating during deposition. F 4ZnPc is an efficient donor material that can achieve a 4.6% power conversion efficiency in single heterojunction organic solar cells. Organic solar cells with bulk heterojunctions of C 60 as acceptor and either zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc), or fluorinated ZnPc (F 4ZnPc) as donor materials are presented. Substrate heating of F 4ZnPc:C 60 devices during film deposition strongly increases fill factor and photocurrent. Furthermore, the replacement of ZnPc by F 4ZnPc in otherwise identical devices leads to an improvement of open circuit voltage of 30%, increasing the efficiency from 3.3% (ZnPc:C 60) to 4.6% (F 4ZnPc:C 60). Copyright © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.