Dr Hyojung Cha
Research Associate
Department of Chemistry
Imperial College London
Dr Hyojung Cha received her BSc in Polymer Science and Engineering at the Kyungpook National University and earned her PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) in South Korea. Since June 2015, she joined the group of Professor James R Durrant as a Research Associate in Chemistry at the Imperial College London. Her research interests are in correlation between photoactive layer morphology and charge generation and recombination processes in nonfullerene-based organic solar cells.
Influence of Blend Morphology and Energetics on Charge Separation and Recombination Dynamics in Organic Solar Cells Incorporating a Nonfullerene Acceptor
Nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs) in blends with highly crystalline donor polymers have been shown to yield particularly high device voltage outputs, but typically more modest quantum yields for photocurrent generation as well as often lower fill factors (FF). In this study, we employ transient optical and optoelectronic analysis to elucidate the factors determining device photocurrent and FF in blends of the highly crystalline donor polymer PffBT4T-2OD with the promising NFA FBR or the more widely studied fullerene acceptor PC71BM. Geminate recombination losses, as measured by ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy, are observed to be significantly higher for PffBT4T-2OD:FBR blends. This is assigned to the smaller LUMO-LUMO offset of the PffBT4T-2OD:FBR blends relative to PffBT4T-2OD:PC71BM, resulting in the lower photocurrent generation efficiency obtained with FBR. Employing time delayed charge extraction measurements, these geminate recombination losses are observed to be field dependent, resulting in the lower FF observed with PffBT4T-2OD:FBR devices. These data therefore provide a detailed understanding of the impact of acceptor design, and particularly acceptor energetics, on organic solar cell performance. Our study concludes with a discussion of the implications of these results for the design of NFAs in organic solar cells.
