Effects of tetramethylene sulfone solvent additives on conductivity of PEDOT:PSS film and performance of polymer photovoltaic cells

A solvent additive in PEDOT:PSS solution is one of many methods to improve the conductivity of the poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT: PSS) films. We explore a new type of the solvent additive, namely tetramethylene sulfone (TMS), for the fabrication of the PEDOT: PSS conductive layer in the ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:PCBM/TiOx/Al polymer photovoltaic cells, in comparison to a more common dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solvent additive. At optimal conditions, the TMS additive at 10 wt.% has been found to enhance the conductivity of pristine PEDOT: PSS films from 0.04 S/cm up to approximately 189 S/cm, compared with the highest conductivity for the case of the DMSO additive at 15 wt.% of 117 S/cm. Possible mechanisms of this conductivity enhancement, relating to the polymer conformation and the film morphology, have been investigated by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The performance of the polymer photovoltaic cells fabricated with the solvent additives PEDOT: PSS films follows a similar trend to the conductivity of the films as a function of the additive concentration. The additives mainly lead to greater short circuit current density (J(sc)) of the photovoltaic cells. The highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2.24% of the device has been obtained with the 10 wt.% TMS additive of, compared to the PCE of 1.48% for the standard device without solvent additive. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.