Mobility and fill factor correlation in geminate recombination limited solar cells

Empirical data for the fill factor as a function of charge carrier mobility for two different polymer: fullerene systems is presented and analyzed. The results indicate that charge extraction depth limitations and space charge effects are inconsistent with the observed behavior, and the decrease in the fill factor is, instead, attributed to the field-dependent charge separation and geminate recombination. A solar cell photocurrent limited by the Onsager-Braun charge transfer exciton dissociation is shown to be able to accommodate the experimental observations. Charge dissociation limited solar cells always benefit from increased mobilities, and the negative contribution from the reduced charge separation is shown to be much more important for the fill factor in these material systems than any adverse effects from charge carrier extraction depth limitations or space charge effects due to unbalanced mobilities. The logarithmic dependence of the fill factor on the mobility for such a process is also shown to imply that simply increasing the mobilities is an impractical way to reach very high fill factors under these conditions since unrealistically high mobilities are required. A more controlled morphology is, instead, argued to be necessary for high performance. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3609079]