Abstract—A number of studies have been reported thin-film bulk heterojunction solar cells using p-type semiconducting materials as electron donors and n-type semiconducting materials as electron acceptors. Moreover, some studies have reported that controlling the morphology of the photoactive layer is important. In this study, we report a novel method for film formation utilizing centrifugation to control the morphology of the photoactive layer in thin-film solar cells. By employing this method, we observed high performance. Furthermore, the photoactive layer formed by the centrifugation method resulted in suitable phase-separated structures for charge separation and charge transfer, which were similar to a mutual penetration structure. We also fabricated thin-film bulk heterojunction solar cells using this method and obtained a performance that was 2.2 times greater than that obtained by the conventional spin-coating method using a p-type semiconducting polymer and Ti(IV) isopropoxide as the electron donor and electron acceptor, respectively.
Index Terms—Morphology control, thin film solar cells, bulk heterojunction solar cells, phase separation, photoactive layer, photovoltaic cells.
T. Kato, E. Suzuki, Y. Nasu, S. Izawa, and K. Tanaka are with Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Oyama College, 771 Nakakuki, Oyama, Tochigi 323-0806, Japan (e-mail: Kato_t@oyama-ct.ac.jp).
N. Hagiwara is with Ashizawa Finetech Ltd., 2-1-4 Hitotonoya, Oyama, Tochigi 323-0034, Japan.
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Cite: T. Kato, N. Hagiwara, E. Suzuki, Y. Nasu, S. Izawa, and K. Tanaka, "Morphology Control by the Centrifugation Method for Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells," International Journal of Chemical Engineering and Applications vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 309-313, 2016.
