Effect of mixed solvents on PCDTBT:PC70BM based solar cells

We investigated the effect of solvents on the morphology, charge transport and device performance of poly[N-9 ''-hepta-decanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4',7'-di-2-thienyl-2',1',3'-benzothiadiazole)] (PCDTBT) and [6,6]-phenyl C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC70BM) based solar cells. To carry out this investigation, chloroform and 1,2-dichlorobenzene were chosen as good solvents of the two compounds. Films prepared with chloroform exhibit larger domains than those prepared with 1,2-dichlorobenzene and their size increases with the amount of PC70BM. Fine tuning of the domain size was realized by using a solvent of mixed chloroform and 1,2-dichlorobenzene. At a mixing ratio of 50%:50%, a power conversion efficiency of 6.1% was achieved on PCDTBT:PC70BM (1:3) devices with an active area of 1 cm(2), under air mass 1.5 global (AM 1.5 G) irradiation at 100 mW/cm(2). Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.