Organic photovoltaics: Crosslinking for optimal morphology and stability

Joseph W. Rumer, Iain McCulloch

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

136 Scopus citations

Abstract

Organic solar cells now exceed 10% efficiency igniting interest not only in the fundamental molecular design of the photoactive semiconducting materials, but also in overlapping fields such as green chemistry, large-scale processing and thin film stability. For these devices to be commercially useful, they must have lifetimes in excess of 10 years. One source of potential instability, is that the two bicontinuous phases of electron donor and acceptor materials in the photoactive thin film bulk heterojunction, change in dimensions over time. Photocrosslinking of the π-conjugated semiconducting donor polymers allows the thin film morphology to be ‘locked’ affording patterned and stable blends with suppressed fullerene acceptor crystallization. This article reviews the performance of crosslinkable polymers, fullerenes and additives used to-date, identifying the most promising.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)425-435
Number of pages11
JournalMaterials Today
Volume18
Issue number8
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 26 2015

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Mechanics of Materials
  • General Materials Science
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Condensed Matter Physics

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