The Effect of The Thickness of Active Layer and The Temperature of The Polymer Solar Cells (PSCS) On the Efficiency

Abstract

Polymer solar cells (PSCs), which are composed of two photoactive layers, bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) blends of p-type polymer donors and n-type acceptor materials, electronics. Polymer solar cells (PSCs) have been gaining great popularity in recent years due to their potentials to be low cost, lightweight, and flexible.

In this study, the effect of the thickness of the active layer of the solar cells on the efficiency has been studying. It has been shown that increasing the thickness beyond 100nm decreases the efficiency of the (PSCS). The optimal thickness of the active layer is also greatly increased from 25nm to 60nm.  In addition, the devices fabricated at 300 °K .The blend consist of Conjugated Polymer Poly (2-methoxy-5-(3′, 7′- dimethyloctyloxy)-1, 4-phenylenevinylene) MDMO-PPV as electron donor and PCBM as electron acceptor, in a 1:4 weight ratio.

The experimental results show that the maximum efficiency is at a thickness of about 40 nm. In addition, the fill factor decreases with an increase of thickness.

Temperature has a negative effect on the open-circuit voltage. The ideality factor, n, at 300K is about 1.6. This gives a value of about 10 V for the rate of decrease of the open-circuit voltage with temperature.