Impact of 1,8-diiodooctane on the morphology of organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices – A Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) study

Journal article (2020)

Authors

Gabriel Bernardo Universidade do Porto, University of Sheffield
Hugo Gaspar University of Sheffield
Gabriel E. Pérez University of Sheffield
Alec S.D. Shackleford University of Sheffield
Andrew J. Parnell University of Sheffield
Markus Bleuel National Institute of Standards and Technology
Adélio Mendes Universidade do Porto
Stephen M. King Rutherford Appleton Laboratory
S.R. Parnell RID/TS/Instrumenten groep
Research Group
RID/TS/Instrumenten groep
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Published Date

2020

Language

English

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Research Group

RID/TS/Instrumenten groep

Abstract

The impact of the additive 1,8-diiodooctane on the morphology of bulk-heterojunction solar cells based on the systems P3HT:PC71BM, PTB7:PC71BM and PTB7-Th:PC71BM is studied using a combination of Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The results clearly show that while in the P3HT:PC71BM system, the additive DIO promotes a slight coarsening of the phase domains (type I additive), in the systems PTB7:PC71BM and PTB7-Th:PC71BM, DIO promotes a large decrease in the size of the phase domains (type II additive). SANS is demonstrated as being particularly useful at detecting the minor morphological changes observed in the P3HT:PC71BM system, which can be hardly seen in AFM. This work illustrates how SANS complements AFM and both techniques when used together provide a deeper insight into the nanoscale structure in thin organic photovoltaic (OPV) device films.