COLLEGE OF NATURAL & COMPUTATIONAL

SCIENCE
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

TANDEM ORGANIC SOLAR CELL

A Research Proposal Submitted Debre Birhan University in partial

fulfillment for the Requirement of MSc in Physics

PREPARED BY: TEREFE TAMIRAT

ADVISOR: BIZUNEH G/MICHAEL (PhD)

January, 2020

Debre Birhan, Ethiopia

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I greatly owe my heartfelt gratitude to my dedicated Advisor Dr. Bizuneh G/Michael for his
incredible guidance that let me finish this proposal.

I
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT..................................................................................................................I

LIST OF TABLE.............................................................................................................................IV

LIST OF FIGURES..........................................................................................................................V

CHAPTER ONE................................................................................................................................1

INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................1

OVERVIEW OF OSC.............................................................................................................1

1.1. GENERAL BACKGROUND......................................................................................2

1.2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY.................................................................................3

1.2.1. GENERAL OBJECTIVES...................................................................................3

1.2.2. Specific Objective......................................................................................................3

CHAPTER TWO...............................................................................................................................4

LITERATURE REVIEW..................................................................................................................4

2.1. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF TANDEM SOLAR CELLS....................................4

2.2. p-n Junction..................................................................................................................5

2.3. Tandem Organic Solar Cells........................................................................................9

2.3.1. Intermediate Layers............................................................................................10

2.4. Working Principles of Tandem Solar Cells................................................................13

2.5. Tandem device structure............................................................................................15

CHAPTER - THREE.......................................................................................................................17

MATERIALS AND METHODS....................................................................................................17

3.1. Material......................................................................................................................17

3.1.1. The material we will use.....................................................................................17

3.1.2. For simulation work................................................................................................17

II
 3.2. Methods......................................................................................................................17

3.3. Method of simulation.................................................................................................18

CHAPTER 4....................................................................................................................................19

TIME SCHEDULE AND BUDGETALLOTMENT......................................................................19

4.1. Time Schedule............................................................................................................19

4.2. Budget Allotment.......................................................................................................20

REFERENCE..................................................................................................................................21

III
LIST OF TABLE
Table 1: Time Plan………………………………………………………………….18

Table 2: Budget Plan………………………………………………………………..18

IV
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 2.1. The current density-voltage (J-V) curve …………………………………………..5

Figure 2.2 The equivalent circuit of a solar cell………………………………………………6

Figure 2.3. The series resistance, Rs and shunt resistance, Rsh can be extracted from J-V
curve……………………………………………………………………………………………7

Figure 2.4: (a) Solar spectral irradiance of AM1.5G and absorption spectra for the sub cells in
a tandem device. (b) A typical architecture for tandem solar cells……………………………8

Figure 2.5: Schematic representation of common tandem OSC architectures: (a) conventional
and (b) inverted architectures……………………………………………………………….10

Figure 2.6: Typical architecture for a two-sub cell tandem solar cell in parallel connection
with common anode………………………………………………………………………...11

Figure 2.7: Schematic energy level diagram ……………………………………………….12

Figure 2.8 Device structure of semi-transparent organic solar cell in tandem structure. …….13

V
CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

OVERVIEW OF OSC

Mankind needs energy for a living. Modern living on Earth leads to a continuous expansion of
the global demand for energy. It is clear that by 2025 almost the double amount of energy is
needed as compared to today (International Energy Outlook, 2005). In addition, it is also clear
that combustion of fossil fuels will have serious consequences for our climate by increasing the
concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (GEO yearbook 2004/5; IPCC, 2001).
Therefore, realization of green power has become a must! The most clean, renewable and
sustainable energy known to humankind is solar energy. With a photovoltaic device, the solar
light (photons) can be converted into electricity. The electrical energy is one of the most useful
forms of energy, since it can be used for almost any application. The ‘photovoltaic effect’ is the
mechanism in which a solar cell converts photons from the solar light into electricity. While the
photovoltaic effect was first observed in 1839 in an electrochemical process by French physicist
Alexander-Edmond Becquerel, the first well-performing solid-state solar cell was built by
Charles Fritts in 1883. He coated the semiconductor Selenium with an very thin layer of gold to
form a junction that had an efficiency of 1% (Pulfrey, 1978; Johnston, 1980). Modern generation
of solar cells was born in 1953 when at Bell Laboratories (New Jersey, USA) the first silicon
solar cell was developed with a power conversion efficiency of 6% (Chappin et al 1954). After
that, many different technologies and materials were developed in order to improve the
performance of the device and lower their production cost. In order to achieve this goal, organic
materials provide us with a variety of possibilities.

Especially semiconducting polymers combine the favorable opto-electronic properties of organic

materials, such as high absorption coefficients, with the excellent processing and mechanical
properties of plastic materials. This implies that an organic solar cell can be processed from
solution at room temperature onto a (flexible) substrate using simple and, therefore, much
cheaper methods such as spin (or blade) coating and inkjet printing (Shaheen et al 2001;
Gustafsson, 1998). In this chapter, the physical aspects and different realized device structures of

1
organic single bulk heterojunction solar cells are explained. The optical consideration of the
single bulk heterojunction solar cell demonstrates the need for the multiple structures in which
the absorption is improved by using materials with non-overlapping absorption spectra, as
explained in the further chapters.

1.1. GENERAL BACKGROUND

Industrialization and human development of the world have increased the demands for renewable
energy. Renewable energy has been widely viewed as the grand challenge of the new century. In
2008, the world’s energy consumption was 15 Terawatt (TW) per year (World Energy, 2009),
which is 20 times more than it was in 1850. 80% to 90% of the energy consumption per year was
from the combustion of fossil fuels like coal and oil, which leave a heavy environmental
footprint.

Among all the energy sources, solar energy represents the most abundant and promising solution.
The solar radiation on the Earth per hour is 14 TW, i.e. almost the same as the world’s annual
energy consumption. In fact, using photovoltaic (PV) modules with 10% efficiency, the total
U.S. energy demand could be met by a 100 mile 100 mile PV array in Nevada (Turner, 1999).
However, solar photovoltaic only provides 0.04% of the global energy usage. This is largely due
to the high cost of making traditional crystalline silicon solar cells, which represents 90% of the
world PV market just a few years ago. Continuous efforts in lowering the cost of solar
photovoltaic make the thin film technology more and more popular. Today, the market share of
thin film solar cell (mainly by First Solar) is near 20%. An emerging third generation of
photovoltaic technology, organic photovoltaic (OPV), provides promise of a low cost solar
photovoltaic solution and attracts significant academic and industry research. The low cost of
OPV comes from several intrinsic advantages of this technology:

i. organic materials are abundant; progress in organic chemistry forms a solid base for
material innovation;
ii. OPV materials have much higher absorption coefficients than silicon, which leads to
typical OPV active layer thickness in the hundreds of nanometer range, resulting in low
material consumption;
iii. solution processable polymer OPV is compatible with high speed coating/printing
technologies, which has a high material utilization efficiency;

2
 iv. the room temperature manufacturing process significantly reduces the energy input for
solar cell production. In addition, OPV product is non-toxic and environmentally
friendly. OPV also has the advantages of low specific-weight, mechanical flexibility and
easy tunability of chemical properties of the organic materials, which enables multiple
color and semitransparent solar cells (Koakley et al, 2004; Shrotriya et al, 2007; Brabeck
et al, 2008).

1.2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1.2.1. GENERAL OBJECTIVES

The general objective of this study is to explore optoelectronic pathways relevant to organic
semiconductors for broad-band solar photon harvesting with a focus on understanding the
fundamental device physics needed to improve the efficiency of tandem OSCs.

1.2.2. Specific Objective

The specific objectives of the study is to implement advanced device architectures for efficient
photon harvesting and to understand the basic principles of device operation and optimization.

3
CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF TANDEM SOLAR CELLS

In the last decades, solar cells (converting the sunlight into electricity) have attracted much
attention as a proper candidate for the main energy source in the future. In order to produce low-
cost and large-area solar cells, many new device structures and materials are being developed.
For the first time in the 1950s photoconductivity was reported in organic crystals, such as
anthracene (Kepler, 1960) The first highly conductive polymer was reported in 1977, chemically
doped polyacetylene (Chiang et al, 1977). Since then, organic molecules and semiconducting
polymers are being increasingly used in (opto) electronic devices. In the last years, the use of
organic materials as active layer in photovoltaic devices has attracted more and more attention
and the total conversion efficiency of those cells has increased rapidly (Tang, 1986). First, small
(low molecular weight) organic molecules (Peumans et al, 2003) and later also semi-conducting
polymers (Yu et al, 1995) were incorporated into solar cells. In general, illumination of an
organic semiconductor leads to the creation of excitons (Pope et al, 1991) with a binding energy
of about 0.4 eV (Barth and Bassler, 1997), instead of free charges. The exciton can be separated
when it reaches the interface between suited donor (D) and acceptor (A) materials, where the
difference in the electron affinities and the ionization potentials between those two (A & D
materials) are sufficiently large to overcome the exciton binding energy. The hole and electron
are still Coulombically bound across the D/A interface, even though the opposing charges reside
in different organic materials. After breaking the Coulomb binding between the electron in the
acceptor and the hole in the donor, the electrons and holes are subsequently transported through
the acceptor and donor phase, respectively, to the electrodes of the device. However, the low
mobility of electrons and holes, together with relatively narrow absorption spectra of the organic
materials, lead to a relatively low performance of the organic solar cells. The efficiency typically
amounts to 4–5%, which limits them for practical applications. Excellent reviews have appeared
in literature regarding these so-called single active layer or mono junction solar cells (Nelson,
2002). To improve the absorption of the solar radiation by organic solar cells, materials with a
broad absorption band have to be designed and produced, or different narrow band absorbers
have to be stacked or mixed in multiple junctions. When two (or more) donor materials with

4
partially non overlapping absorption spectra are used in a tandem (or multi-junction) solar cell, a
broader range of the solar spectrum (whole visible and part of the IR range) can be covered.
There are several approaches for organic tandem (multiple) cells reported in the last years,
depending on the materials used for the active layer and the proper separation or recombination
layer(s). All layers can be different in each architecture or approach. In general, the multiple
organic solar cells, reported until today, can be divided in three classes;

 Tandem (or multi-junction) organic solar cells in which low molecular weight
molecules are used for both the bottom (front) and the top (back) cells,
 Hybrid tandem organic solar cells in which the bottom cell is processed from
polymers by solution-processing, while the top cell is made of vacuum-deposited
low molecular weight molecules,
 Fully solution-processed tandem or multi-junction organic solar cells in which
both the bottom and the top cells are made of polymers.

2.2. p-n Junction

The current-voltage behavior of a solar cell can be described by the electrical behavior in
a PN junction, as shown in Figure 1.9. Upon applying the electric field, E, the contact region
between p-type and n-type semiconductor is quickly depleted of free charge carriers, hereafter
known as the depletion region. An internal field, known as the built-in potential Vbi, is formed
within the depletion region. When a solar cell is in the dark state, its current-voltage behavior
follows the current voltage behavior like an ideal p-n junction, which is

where Jdark is the current density in the dark state, V is the voltage, Jo is the saturation current
density, and VT is thermal voltage. The VT is given by V nkT q V T  / 0.026 , where k is
Boltzmann‘s constant, q is electronic charge, and n is the ideal factor of the diode. Upon solar
illumination, extra charge carriers are generated within p-n junction breaking the original
balance. A new term, Jph representing the photocurrent density is added to reflect the new
current-voltage relationship in the p-n junction as

5
As shown in Figure 1.9, a typical current-voltage curve for solar cell should reside in the
fourth quadrant. When the applied voltage is equal to zero (V  0 ), current output is the greatest
and equal to the photocurrent density alone. This particular term is also known as short-circuit
current density, JSC.

In Figure 1.9, it is the intersection point between the current-voltage curve and the y-axis.
On the other hand, by setting the current density equal to zero (J = 0), we can obtain a voltage
value, which can be expressed as

This voltage is also known as the open-circuit voltage, VOC, which typically is the
intersection point between current-voltage curve and x-axis. The power output given by a solar
cell is defined as the product of current and voltage at a given point, which is equal to

The power conversion efficiency, defined by the ratio between the maximum power output by
solar cell and incident light power received by solar cell is written as max 100%

6
Figure 2.1. The current density-voltage (J-V) curve for solar cell under illumination with the
equivalent circuit showing in the upper left corner.

From Figure 2.1., there are two different rectangles in the fourth quadrant. The larger rectangle,
given by the product of JSC and VOC, is the ideal maximum power achievable by the solar cell.
The smaller rectangle given by the product of Jmax (real maximum current output during the
operation) and Vmax (real maximum voltage output during the operation) is the real maximum
power output, Pmax, given by solar cell. Here, we can represent Pmax in terms of JSC and VOC,

A new ratio factor, fill factor (FF), defined by the ratio between the maximum output
power and the ideal maximum output power is given. FF can be seen as the measure of quality
of the J-V curve measured for the solar cell upon illumination. The power conversion efficiency
can therefore be rewritten in terms of FF,

The typical incident light intensity from solar simulator is 1000 W/m 2 or 100 mW/cm2.
Furthermore, the summation of the EQE response can also be used to calculate the maximum
photocurrent density, which is given as

7
in which λ is the wavelength in nanometer scale, Io is the intensity of incident light (mW/cm 2).

Figure 2.2 The equivalent circuit of a solar cell.

Figure 1.10 is an approximate equivalent circuit used to describe a conventional solar cell.
The solar cell is basically a diode connected with a current source in parallel. The parasitic
resistors (Rs and Rsh) are also incorporated into the equivalent circuit to represent the different
parasitic effects inside the solar cell. When current flows through these resistors, partial power is
dissipated by P = V2/R thus reducing the total power output of the solar cells. To account the
shunt resistance effect on photocurrent, we can rewrite photocurrent equation as

Furthermore, the approximate value of series resistance Rs and shunt resistance Rsh can
also be extracted from J-V curve. Under ideal solar cell conditions, Rs should be as small as
possible while Rsh should be as close to infinity as possible. In that case, J V J V max max   
sc oc . On the J-V curve, the series resistance (Rs) can be extrapolated from the slope of the J-V
curve at the open-circuit voltage point, whereas the shunt resistance (Rsh) can be extrapolated

8
from the slope of the J-V curve at short-circuit current point, as shown in Figure 2.3

Figure 2.3. The series resistance, Rs and shunt resistance, Rsh can be extracted from J-V curve.

2.3. Tandem Organic Solar Cells

In order to circumvent the losses in the single junction OSCs and to improve the absorption of
solar irradiation, solar cells with different optical gap absorbers are stacked in multiple
junctions (Hadipour et al, 2008). This tandem configuration is also an effective approach and is
widely used for inorganic solar cells (Takamoto et al, 2008). Hence, when two or more absorber
materials with distinct and complementary absorption spectra are used in tandem solar cells, a
broader range of the solar spectrum can be absorbed and more solar energy can be harvested.

9
With the aid of combined optical and electrical device modelling, the maximum PCE for single
junction OSCs is 11.7%. The maximum obtainable efficiency for tandem OSCs is expected to be
14.1%, which is 20% higher than that for single junction solar cells (Kotlarski, 2011). Figure 1.5
shows the solar spectral irradiance of AM1.5G and typical absorption spectra for two sub cells in
a tandem OSC, along with an illustration of a typical tandem architecture. The bottom sub cell is
closest to the illuminating source; the top sub cell is farthest from the illuminating source. The
absorption spectra for the sub cells are distinct and complementary and the overlap between the
solar irradiation spectrum and the tandem absorption spectrum is broadened by applying wide
and narrow optical gap absorber materials in the tandem device. Therefore, tandem solar cells
will harvest more solar energy and achieve a higher PCE. Furthermore, when we consider the
fact that both Channel I and Channel II mechanism can make contribution to the photocurrent, it
is fundamentally intriguing to design a tandem device comprising two sub cells with
complementary absorption: one sub cell dominated by Channel I mechanism and the other sub
cell dominated by Channel II mechanism.

Figure 2.4: (a) Solar spectral irradiance of AM1.5G and absorption spectra for the sub cells in a
tandem device. (b) A typical architecture for tandem solar cells.

2.3.1. Intermediate Layers

There are two basic types of connection for subcells in a tandem configuration: either in parallel
or in series, depending on the nature of the intermediate layer and how the two electrodes are

10
connected. The intermediate layer plays a crucial role in multiple-junction solar cells as it has to
satisfy many requirements mechanically, optically and electrically (Yang, 2011). The
intermediate layer serves as a recombination layer in series tandem devices and as the third
electrode in parallel tandem devices.

i) In Series

There are two basic types of architectures for single junction OSCs: the conventional and the
inverted architectures shown in Figure 2.4. Similar to the architecture of single junction solar
cells, tandem devices also are divided into conventional and inverted structures, determined by
the charge collection pathways in its sub cells, as shown in Figure 2.5.

Figure 2.4: Schematic representation of common OSC architectures: (a) conventional and (b)
inverted architectures. ETL: electron transport layer; HTL: hole transport layer. With reference
to Figure 2.5(a), the photo generated electrons produced in the 1st sub cell move to the
recombination zone through the electron transport layer (ETL) and are recombined with
holes produced in the 2nd sub cell. The electrons generated in the 2nd sub cell are extracted at the
metal cathode and the hole of the 1st sub cell is extracted at the transparent Indium Tin Oxide
(ITO) electrode. Both charge carriers are then driven to the external circuit. According to
Kirchhoff’s voltage law, the Voc of stacked sub cells in series with an efficient intermediate layer
is equal to the sum of Voc of each sub cell in the case of loss-free connections (Ameri, 2009).
The overall JSC of a tandem OSC is therefore dictated by the lower JSC of the two sub cells and
FF (Hadipour et al, 2008)

In some tandem devices (Dennler et al, 2006) incorporating photoactive layers comprised of
evaporated small molecules, a thin (~1 nm) Au layer is enough to perform an efficient
intermediate layer. Common inorganic ETL materials include TiOX (Sista et al, 2006), ZnO
(Gillot et al, 2007) and Cs2CO3. Common inorganic HTL materials include MoOX(Zhao et al,
2009), WO3(58) and V2O5 (Larsen-Olsen et al, 2011). Organic materials used for ETLs include
PTCBI(Rand et al 2004), BPhen:Li, n-C60. Common organic HTL materials include m

11
MTDATA doped F4-TCNQ, p-DiNPB and poly(ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonic
acid) (PEDOT:PSS).

Figure 2.5: Schematic representation of common tandem OSC architectures: (a) conventional
and (b) inverted architectures.

Three or more single junctions have been stacked together in a conventional architecture. These
devices gave high Vocs as reported by Gilot, Zhao,Yakimov and Triyana et al
and maximum Voc of 2.19 V is demonstrated by Gilot et al. Tong and Tung et al.
demonstrated that graphene and graphene oxide (GO) could be used as an intermediate layer.
Tung et al. first demonstrated that two subcells could be glued together with a sticky
GO/PEDOT:PSS intermediate layer. Numerous simulations have been reported based on series
tandem device structures with the solution processed intermediate layers comprising of
ZnO/PEDOT:PSS(42) or TiOX/PEDOT:PSS.
ii) In Parallel

In the parallel tandem architecture, the subcells are arranged in a three terminal configuration in
which the two subcells are connected in parallel with either a common anode or a common
cathode, which is a transparent common electrode. The typical architecture for a parallel tandem
solar cell with common anode is schematically shown in Figure 1.8.

12
Figure 2.6: Typical architecture for a two-sub cell tandem solar cell in parallel connection with
common anode.

2.4. Working Principles of Tandem Solar Cells

The fundamental physical processes of free charge generation from initial photoexctiation
within OSCs – involving an ultrafast electron transfer process from an excited electron donor to
a ground state electron acceptor – are represented schematically in the energetic diagram
depicted in Figure 1.1 (a). There are generally two organic components required to form an
efficient photovoltaic junction: the electron donor and the electron acceptor. Photons that are
absorbed in the donor result in photo generated excitons (Coulombically bound electron-hole
pairs) (Ameri et al, 2009). Then the excitons diffuse towards the donor-acceptor interface
(Service, 2011) and if the interface is within the exciton diffusion length of the donor they
undergo charge separation (Coffin et al, 2009). The driving force for exciton dissociation is the
difference between the ionisation energy of the photoexcited donor (I*D) and electron affinity of
the acceptor (AA). Charge separation (Coffin, 2009) takes place rapidly at the interface if these
energies are favourable for dissociation. The separated free electrons and holes are then

13
transported (Liang, 2010), with the aid of an internal electric field, to their respective electrode
where they are collected (Zhou, 2010) and finally driven into the external circuit. This
photoinduced electron transfer (PET) process is commonly thought to be the dominant
mechanism for photocurrent generation in OSCs and is defined as the Channel I process. In
OSCs, the open circuit voltage (Voc) is determined by the energy difference between I D and
AA.(Ameri et al, 2009)

In Figure 1.1(a), I*D is the ionisation energy of the photoexcited donor, ID refers to the
ionisation energy of the ground state donor and AD the electron affinity of the donor. AA is the
acceptor electron affinity and IA is the ionisation energy of the acceptor. In molecular orbital
theory, the energy levels of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest
unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) correspond approximately to ionization energy and
electron affinity respectively.

Figure 2.7: Schematic energy level diagram showing the physical process of charge generation
for OSCs by Channel I (a) and Channel II (b) mechanisms. The numbers refer to the processes
referred to in the text. ID is the ionisation energy of the donor, A A is the acceptor electron
affinity, IA is the ionisation energy of the acceptor. I* D is the ionisation energy of the
photoexcited donor.

Recently the Channel II photocurrent generation mechanism has been reported and highlighted
due to its significant photocurrent contribution (Fang, 2012). Channel-II process is defined as

14
hole transfer from a photoexcited acceptor to a ground state donor and this process also makes a
significant contribution to the photocurrent (Zhang et al, 2013) The physical process for the
Channel II mechanism is different from Channel I in that excitons are generated in the acceptor
instead of the donor and therefore the energetic driving force for the exciton dissociation is the
energy difference between ID and IA instead of between I*D and AA. The process is schematically
represented in the energetic diagram depicted in Figure 2.7(b).

Charge separation is energetically favourable when the following condition is satisfied (23)

represent the exciton binding energies for donor and acceptor respectively. However, explaining
PET only on energetic grounds may be an over simplification. Based on the Marcus-Hush
theory, the systematic study of the energetic and thermodynamics of a donor acceptor system
provides a deep and accurate understanding of PET. Schwenn et al.(28) concluded: i) the
electron transfer is most efficient when the driving force for charge separation
is equal to the reorganization energy for the ionized states; ii) the electronic coupling should be
as large as possible for the forward reaction (from the photo-excited state to charge transfer
state), but as small as possible for the recombination reaction; and iii) the match between the
reorganization energy and the thermodynamic driving force is more important than the
electronic coupling in determining PET.

2.5. Tandem device structure

Figure 4.1 shows the schematic structure of a tandem-structure, semi-transparent PSC. In this
section, we report semi-transparent PSC, possessing a tandem structures featuring:

i. Two new low-band gap polymers, PBDTT-FDPP-C12 and PBDTT-SeDPP, that sensitize
well in different regions of IR spectrum. Through the variation of chemical structures, we
could differentiate the photo response of IR-sensitive polymer from 900 to 950 nm thus
improve the current in the tandem solar cell.
ii. Two different fullerene derivatives, PC61BM and PC71BM, which have different
strengths in harvesting visible photons. Therefore, they can be used to tune the visible
transparency of devices.

15
 iii. A new interconnecting layer (ICL) design that is solution-processed, and low-temperature
derived. We also found that the conjugated polyelectrolyte as the interfacial dipole layer
could lead to improved electrical connections between the two sub cells. Figure 4.1
introduces two designs of semi-transparent tandem structure PSC, depending on the
combination of front and back sub cell materials. Semi-transparent tandem 1 focuses on
high visible transparency and uses PC61BM in both front and back subcells. Semi-
transparent tandem 2 focuses on high photovoltaic performance and uses PC71BM in the
back subcell.

Figure 2.8 Device structure of semi-transparent organic solar cell in tandem structure.

16
CHAPTER - THREE

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this thesis we need to design using ternary blend system with two donors and one acceptors,
these two donors helps to maximizes absorption width of active photo layers of a device.

3.1. Material

3.1.1. The material we will use

 Different detergents (Acetone, alcohol cleaners, tape water isopropanols, Chloroform
(Solvent))
 Ultrasonic cleaner /ultrasonic bath/
 Conducting ITO glass.
 Cutter, meter tape,multi meter, soft paper.
 Differentsized sample holder/lml -10ml/
 Sucker, ITO slid holder. Spine coater, Glove. Ovum,
 UV-VIS
 Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) Polythienothiophene/ benzodithiophene (PTB7), (6,6)-
phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM)

3.1.2. For simulation work

We need also the software programs for simulation work. These are:
General purposed photovoltaic device model (gpvdm).
Scaps

3.2. Methods

In the optical and electrical characterization of ternary bulk hetero junction binary blend
structure of the form D1:D2:A o PTB7 and P3HT will be the donor part where photo active
layer and PTB7 is the acceptor polymer. This polymer thin film will be prepared by spine
coating method.

17
3.3. Method of simulation
Both electrical and electrical characterization will be done by General purposed photo
voltaic software program.
The graphical work will be done using origin software.

18
CHAPTER 4

TIME SCHEDULE AND BUDGETALLOTMENT

4.1. Time Schedule

R.No. Activity Estimated timein G.C

1 Reviewing literatures Dec.1st/2018 –Jan. 25/2019

2 Proposal development Jan. 26/2019 – Feb. 12/2019

3 Proposal defense Feb. 13/2019 – Feb.17/2019

4 simulation work Feb.18/2019 – Mar.3/2019

5 Collecting materials (Setup experiment) Mar. 4/2018 – Mar. 10/2019

6 Working on the experiment Mar.11/2019 – Mar. 20/2019

7 data analysis Mar. 21/2019 – Apr.4/2019

8 Thesis Writing Apr.5/2019 – May20/2019

9 Submission of the Thesis May.21/2019 – May31/2019

10 Presentation of the Jun1/2019 –

4.2. Budget Allotment

R.No. Description Cost in birr

19
1 Stationery materials 1000

2 Internet access 1000

3 Thesis printing 500

4 Transportation and allowance 1500

5 Laboratory payment 3000

6 Materials for device preparation 18000

Total 0

20
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