Exciton behaviour at organic solar cell interfaces
type: CreativeWork
description: Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have emerged as a promising class of materials in the production of flexible and cheap solar cells. Polymer OPVs are typically composed of a blend of a semiconducting electron donating poly- mer with an electron accepting fullerene derivative. This blend leads to a high donor-acceptor interfacial surface area where excitons are split apart to create free charges. The generation of free charges after photo-excitation is a main factor influencing solar cell efficiency. However, the mechanisms of charge transfer and the competing process of charge recombination at the interface are not completely clear. The understanding of these processes is essential for the rational design of materials that can maximize photovoltaic conversion efficiencies. The focus of this dissertation is on the influence that electric fields and chemical structure have on exciton dissociation and recombination at the interface of donor-acceptor materials. In particular, we use mixed quantum/classical dynamical simulations and electronic structure calculations to investigate several oligomer-fullerene systems. In order to study the potential energy surfaces guiding the dynamics of electron transfer, the nuclear and electron dynamics of large systems need to be simulated. To make these calculations computationally feasible, a mixed quantum classical molecular dynamics (MQCMD) approach was taken. This technique is based on the QCFF/PI formalism first described by Warshel and Karplus and was further developed by Lobaugh and Rossky for the simulation of betaine-30. This approach divides the conjugated system into a classical and a quantum subsystem. The quantum treatment is reserved for the π electronic system described by the Pariser-Parr-Pople (PPP) Hamiltonian. The classical potential describes a fully flexible molecular backbone and is modeled using an empirical molecular mechanics force field. In the first part of the dissertation we are examining the effect of an ext…
abstract: Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have emerged as a promising class of materials in the production of flexible and cheap solar cells. Polymer OPVs are typically composed of a blend of a semiconducting electron donating poly- mer with an electron accepting fullerene derivative. This blend leads to a high donor-acceptor interfacial surface area where excitons are split apart to create free charges. The generation of free charges after photo-excitation is a main factor influencing solar cell efficiency. However, the mechanisms of charge transfer and the competing process of charge recombination at the interface are not completely clear. The understanding of these processes is essential for the rational design of materials that can maximize photovoltaic conversion efficiencies. The focus of this dissertation is on the influence that electric fields and chemical structure have on exciton dissociation and recombination at the interface of donor-acceptor materials. In particular, we use mixed quantum/classical dynamical simulations and electronic structure calculations to investigate several oligomer-fullerene systems. In order to study the potential energy surfaces guiding the dynamics of electron transfer, the nuclear and electron dynamics of large systems need to be simulated. To make these calculations computationally feasible, a mixed quantum classical molecular dynamics (MQCMD) approach was taken. This technique is based on the QCFF/PI formalism first described by Warshel and Karplus and was further developed by Lobaugh and Rossky for the simulation of betaine-30. This approach divides the conjugated system into a classical and a quantum subsystem. The quantum treatment is reserved for the π electronic system described by the Pariser-Parr-Pople (PPP) Hamiltonian. The classical potential describes a fully flexible molecular backbone and is modeled using an empirical molecular mechanics force field. In the first part of the dissertation we are examining the effect of an ext…
author: Dinica, Olivia
language: en
keywords: OPV, Organic solar cell, Polymer, PPP method, QCFF/PI, PCDTBT, P3HT, Fullerene, Exciton, Charge transfer, Non-adiabatic coupling
date published: 2015-12
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:00:54Z
provider: University of Texas
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: The University of Texas at Austin

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2152/32940

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.15781/T2BT1T