Nature of excitons in PPDT2FBT: PCBM solar cell: Role played by PCBM

In organic semiconductor based bulk heterojunction solar cells, the presence of acceptor increases the formation of charge transfer (CT) excitons, thereby leading to higher exciton dissociation probabilities. In this work we used steady state electroabsorption (EA) measurements to probe the change in the nature of excitons as the blend composition of the solar cell active layer material is varied. We investigated blends of poly[(2,5-bis(2-hexyldecyloxy)phenylene)-alt-(5,6-difluoro-4,7-di(thiophen-2-yl)benzo[c]-[1,2,5]thiadiazole)] (PPDT2FBT) and (6,6)-Phenyl C71 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM). Analysis of the EA spectra showed that in presence of fullerene based acceptor, like PCBM, CT characteristics of the excitons were modified, though, no new CT signature was observed in the blend. Enhancement in the CT characteristic in the blend was reflected in the photoluminescence (PL) measurements of the blends, where, PL quenching of $\sim$ 63% was observed for 1% PCBM. The quenching reaches saturation at about 20% PCBM. However, efficiency of the device increased with PCBM percentage beyond 20%. The maximum efficiency was obtained for the blend having 50% PCBM, among the blend compositions studied in this work, indicating the optimum concentration of PCBM for best power conversion efficiency to be around that value. Comparing experimental results with simulations, the variation of the device efficiency with PCBM percentage was shown to be arising from multiple factors like increase in polarizability and dipole moment of excitons, and the efficiency of the carrier collection from the bulk of the active layer.