Orientation dependent molecular electrostatics drives efficient charge generation in homojunction organic sol
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Organic solar cells usually utilise a heterojunction between electron-donating (D) and electron-accepting (A) materials to split excitons into charges. However, the use of D-A blends intrinsically limits the photovoltage and introduces morphological instability. Here, we demonstrate that polycrystalline films of chemically identical molecules offer a promising alternative and show that photoexcitation of α-sexithiophene (α-6T) films results in efficient charge generation. This leads to α-6T based homojunction organic solar cells with an external quantum efficiency reaching up to 44% and an open-circuit voltage of 1.61 V. Morphological, photoemission, and modelling studies show that boundaries between α-6T crystalline domains with different orientations generate an electrostatic landscape with an interfacial energy offset of 0.4 eV, which promotes the formation of hybridised exciton/charge-transfer states at the interface, dissociating efficiently into free charges. Our findings open new avenues for organic solar cell design where material energetics are tuned through molecular electrostatic engineering and mesoscale structural control.
Date Issued
2020-09-15
Date Acceptance
2020-08-21
Citation
Nature Communications, 2020, 11 (1)
ISSN
2041-1723
Publisher
Nature Research
Journal / Book Title
Nature Communications
Volume
11
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you giveappropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the CreativeCommons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third partymaterial in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unlessindicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in thearticle’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutoryregulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly fromthe copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Sponsor
Commission of the European Communities
The Royal Society
Identifier
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32934236
PII: 10.1038/s41467-020-18439-z
Grant Number
639750
URF\R\191026
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
England
Article Number
ARTN 4617