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Quantitative insights into the phase behaviour and miscibility of organic photovoltaic active layers from the perspective of neutron spectroscopy

Authors :
Zbiri, Mohamed
Finn, Peter A.
Nielsen, Christian B.
Guilbert, Anne A. Y.
Source :
Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 9 (2021) 11873
Publication Year :
2021

Abstract

We present a neutron spectroscopy based method to study quantitatively the partial miscibility and phase behaviour of an organic photovoltaic active layer made of conjugated polymer:small molecule blends, presently illustrated with the regio-random poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) and fullerene [6,6]-Phenyl C$_{61}$ butyric acid methyl ester (RRa-P3HT:PCBM) system. We perform both inelastic neutron scattering and quasi-elastic neutron scattering measurements to study the structural dynamics of blends of different compositions enabling us to resolve the phase behaviour. The difference of neutron cross sections between RRa-P3HT and PCBM, and the use of deuteration technique, offer a unique opportunity to probe the miscibility limit of fullerene in the amorphous polymer-rich phase and to tune the contrast between the polymer and the fullerene phases, respectively. Therefore, the proposed approach should be universal and relevant to study new non-fullerene acceptors that are closely related - in terms of chemical structures - to the polymer, where other conventional imaging and spectroscopic techniques present a poor contrast between the blend components.

Details

Database :
arXiv
Journal :
Journal of Materials Chemistry C, 9 (2021) 11873
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.2104.09687
Document Type :
Working Paper
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1039/D1TC01813B