Use of a commercially available nucleating agent to control the morphological development of solution-processed small molecule bulk heterojunction organic solar cells

Abstract

The nucleating agent DMDBS is used to modulate the crystallization of solution-processed small molecule donor molecules in bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaic (BHJ OPV) devices. This control over donor molecule crystallization leads to a reduction in optimized thermal annealing times as well as smaller donor molecule crystallites, and therefore more efficient devices, when using an excessive amount of solvent additive. We therefore demonstrate the use of nucleating agents as a powerful and versatile processing strategy for solution-processed, small molecule BHJ OPVs.