Characterization of high efficiency pseudo bilayer organic solar cells and identification of trap-states with a modified CELIV technique

Abstract

Firstly, this thesis investigates a novel Organic Solar Cell (OSC) fabrication technique with the use of a new acceptor material, indene-C60 bisadduct (ICBA). Once the solar cell was fabricated, an investigation was made to find out the reason behind an increased device performance due to annealing. The investigation revealed that the improved performance was due to the heat energy being used up in crystallizing the acceptor material (ICBA) thereby improving the charge transport properties of electrons in the solar cell.

Secondly, the thesis also investigates the degradation of polymer OSCs made from poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). It introduces a new transient technique, called the LB-CELIV that can quickly identify trap-states in an OSC. This technique if implemented can act as an efficient prognostic tool that can be industrially used to weed out underperforming solar cells for an inline manufacturing setup.