Baixe Plastic Solar Cells e outras Notas de estudo em PDF para Engenharia de Produção, somente na Docsity! Plastic Solar Cells** By Christoph J. Brabec, N. Serdar Sariciftci,* and Jan C. Hummelen 1. Prologue It is intriguing to think of photovoltaic (PV) elements based on thin plastic films. The flexibility offered through the chemical tai- loring of desired properties, as well as the cheap technology already well developed for all kinds of plastic thin film applica- tions would make such an approach a sure hit. The mechanical flexibility of plastic materials is welcome for all PV applications onto curved surfaces for architectural integration. By casting semi-transparent plastic PV thin films between insulating win- dow glass, large unused areas (the windows) can be employed for power generation in addition to the limited roof areas of crowded cities. Even the color of such PVelements can be varied by sacrificing some parts of the visible solar spectrum. An encouraging breakthrough in realizing higher efficiencies has been achieved by mixing electron±donor-type polymers with suitable electron acceptors. The photophysics of conju- gated polymer/fullerene solid composites has been particularly well investigated over the last eight years. An understanding of the photophysics in detail has allowed the realization of proto- type PV devices with solar power conversion efficiencies of around 3 %, and this has in turn triggered enhanced emphasis from several groups worldwide, pursuing this research with in- creasing support from industry as well as public funding agencies. On the other hand there is a common problem for all the applications of conjugated polymers: stability. Even though the expectation on the lifetimes of electronic devices is shrinking due to very short life/fashion cycles of such applications and even though industry may be interested in the cost of an item rather than in a very long durability of it, a shelf lifetime of several years as well as an operational lifetime of tens of thou- sands of hours are requested for all durable applications. Con- jugated polymers have to be protected from air and humidity to achieve such lifetimes. These protection methods are being developed for light emitting diodes (LEDs) as well as PV ele- ments. Their effectiveness is going to be crucial for the success of any applications using these materials. Recent reports from LED research indicate that the stability problem has been suf- ficiently overcome in order to enter into large scale applica- tions, which in turn is a good sign for plastic solar cells. It is the purpose of this review to give a state of the art report on plastic solar cells based on conjugated polymers as well as to give a basic introduction to the underlying photophysics. 2. Device Architectures 2.1. Single Layer Diodes The simplest and most widely used organic semiconductor device is a metal±insulator±metal (MIM) tunnel diode with metal electrodes of asymmetrical workfunction (Fig. 1). Under forward bias, holes from the high workfunction metal and electrons from the low workfunction metal are injected into a thin film of a sin- gle-component organic semiconductor. Because of the asymme- try of the workfunction of the cathode and the anode, forward bias currents for a single carrier type material are orders of mag- nitude larger than reverse bias currents at low voltages. The recti- fying diode characteristics can be accompanied by radiative ± [*] Prof. N. S. Sariciftci, Dr. C. J. Brabec Linzer Institut für organische Solarzellen (LIOS) Physikalische Chemie, Johannes Kepler Universität Linz Altenbergerstr. 69, A-4040 Linz (Austria) E-mail: serdar.sariciftci@jk.uni-linz.ac.at Prof. J. C. Hummelen Organic and Molecular Inorganic Chemistry, University of Groningen Nijenborgh 4, NL-9747 AG Groningen (The Netherlands) [**] The authors gratefully acknowledge the co-workers at the University of Linz and at the University of Groningen. as well as our numerous interna- tional collaboration partners. Financial supports of both the Universities, European Commission (DGXII, JOULE III), Quantum Solar Energy Linz GesmbH (Austria), Christian Doppler Society, the Magistrat Linz, the Land Oberösterreich (ETP), Austrian Foundation for Scientific Research (FWF P-12680CHE) as well as Netherlands Agency for Energy and Envi- ronment (NOVEM) and EET (The Dutch R&D Programme on Energy, Environment and Technology) are gratefully acknowledged. Recent developments in conjugated-polymer-based photovoltaic elements are reviewed. The photophysics of such photoactive devices is based on the photo-induced charge transfer from donor-type semiconducting conjugated polymers to acceptor-type conjugated polymers or acceptor molecules such as Buckminsterfullerene, C60. This photo-induced charge transfer is reversible, ultrafast (within 100 fs) with a quantum efficiency approaching unity, and the charge-separated state is metastable (up to milliseconds at 80 K). Being similar to the first steps in natural photosynthesis, this photo-induced electron transfer leads to a number of potentially interesting applications, which include sensitization of the photoconductivity and photovoltaic phenomena. Examples of photovoltaic architectures are presented and their potential in terrestrial solar energy conversion discussed. Recent progress in the realization of improved photovoltaic elements with 3 % power conversion efficiency is reported. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2001, 11, No. 1, February Ó WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69469 Weinheim, 2001 1616-301X/01/0102-0015 $ 17.50+.50/0 15 FE A TU R E A R TIC LE recombination channels of the injected electrons and holes with- in the molecular solid; the result is an LED.[1±5] If photo-induced free charge carrier generation is allowed at the same time, the device emits light under forward bias and exhibits a significant photocurrent under a reverse bias field (dual function).[6] In order to use the devices for photodetection under reverse bias, the potential difference between the electrodes has to be high enough to overcome the Coulomb attraction for the photogenerated excitons. Otherwise the absorbed photons will mainly create excitons which decay geminately (either radia- tively, with photoluminescence, or non-radiatively). Thus the photocurrent efficiency of such devices will be limited. In the PV mode, where no external voltage is applied and short cir- cuit conditions exist, the potential difference available in the MIM device is caused by the difference between the workfunc- tions of the metal electrodes. In most of the cases (e.g., indium tin oxide, ITO, and Al) the potential difference due to this workfunction difference is not high enough to give efficient photo-induced charge generation, limiting the operation of the Niyazi Serdar Sariciftci received his masters degree in Experimental Physics and a doctorate degree in Semiconductor Physics under the mentorship of Prof. H. Kuzmany at the University of Vienna, Austria, in 1986 and 1989, respectively. After a post doctoral period at Stuttgart University, Ger- many, with Prof. M. Mehring he joined the Institute for Polymers and Organic Solids at the Univer- sity of California, Santa Barbara, with Prof. Alan Heeger. He was appointed Chair and Professor in Physical Chemistry at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria, in 1996. He is the Found- ing Director of the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Plastic Solar Cells and of the newly estab- lished Linz Institute for Organic Solar Cells (LIOS). His main research activities are on organic semiconductor physics and chemistry. Christoph Brabec received his masters degree in Theoretical Physics in 1992 followed by a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry under the mentorship of Prof. Hermann Janeschitz-Kriegl at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria, in 1995. After a post-doctoral stay at the Institute for Polymers & Organic Solids at the University of California, Santa Barbara, with Prof. Alan Heeger he joined the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Plastic Solar Cells at the Johannes Kepler University of Linz in 1998. His main research activities are in the photophysics and photochemistry of conjugated polymeric semiconductors and the development of plastic solar cells. Jan C. (Kees) Hummelen received his masters degree in Chemistry and a doctorate degree in Science under the mentorship of Prof. H. Wynberg at the University of Groningen, The Nether- lands, in 1979 and 1985, respectively. He continued working on the subject of his Ph.D. research until 1989. After four years of playing jazz (piano) and doing art video production in The Nether- lands, he spent two years as a post-doctoral fellow with Prof. Fred Wudl at the Institute for Poly- mers and Organic Solids at University of California, Santa Barbara. After spending six months with Prof E. W. Meijer at the Eindhoven Technical University, he returned to the University of Groningen where he was appointed Universitair Hoofdocent in 1998, and full Professor in Chemis- try in 2000. Over the last seven years, his main research activities have been in fullerene chemistry and the development of plastic photovoltaic technology. Fig. 1. Charge generation process in a single layer conjugated polymer device under short circuit conditions in the MIM model. VB valence band, CB conduc- tion band, Eg bandgap, P +, P± positive and negative polarons. 16 Ó WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69469 Weinheim, 2001 1616-301X/01/0102-0016 $ 17.50+.50/0 Adv. Funct. Mater. 2001, 11, No. 1, February FE A TU R E A R TI C LE C. J. Brabec et al./Plastic Solar Cells electron transfer occurs on a time scale sufficiently fast to quench the intersystem crossing to the triplet state. Using sub-ps photo-induced absorption (PIA) studies[15,26,27] ultrafast (<1 picosecond) formation of the polarons was dem- onstrated. Very recently the forward transfer of the photoexcited elec- trons from conjugated polymer donors onto 1-(3-methoxycar- bonyl)-propyl-1-1-phenyl-(6,6)C61 (PCBM) acceptors was re- solved by pump-probe experiments with an unprecented time resolution of 10 fs.[28] In these studies, the relaxation of the photo-induced excitations on the polymer chain switched from radiative (intense stimulated emission in pristine polymer, DT > 0) to non-radiative (electron transfer in composites, PIA, DT < 0) upon mixing PCBM into the polymer matrix. This experimental setup allowed to time-resolve the photo-induced electron transfer time with ~40 fs after an initial relaxation (Kasha relaxation). As a consequence of the resonant excita- tion of the conjugated polymer by a sub-10 fs laser pulse, the phonon modes which are strongly coupled to the p-electron excitations were directly observed as coherent oscillations Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of a bilayer and sub- sequent photo-induced electron transfer at the interface of the two layers with the device struc- ture for such a kind of junction (a). The diagrams with the energy levels of a MDMO±PPV/C60 sys- tem (as an example) under flat band conditions (b) and under short circuit conditions (c) do not take into account possible interfacial layers at the metal/semiconductor interface. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2001, 11, No. 1, February Ó WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69469 Weinheim, 2001 1616-301X/01/0102-0019 $ 17.50+.50/0 19 FE A TU R E A R TIC LE C. J. Brabec et al./Plastic Solar Cells within the pump probe experiment. By Fourier transforming the oscillatory decay of the time dependent signal the reso- nant/non-resonant Raman spectrum of the conjugated polymer was reproduced. Furthermore, by adding PCBM to the conju- gated polymer matrix these vibrational oscillations were quenched nearly completely indicating a rapid depopulation of the excited state on the conjugated polymer due to the electron transfer. These results demonstrated a direct competition of photo-induced electron transfer with vibrational oscillationson the conjugated polymer donor indicating a photo-induced elec- tron transfer rate of >1013 s±1 (sct < 100 fs). As such this photo-induced electron transfer is indeed ultra- fast, resulting in a quantum yield of photo-induced charge gen- eration of 100 %. The time-resolved transient photocurrent (PC) of MEH± PPV/C60 composites with different C60 content [29] shows an increase of initial photocurrent by an order of magnitude upon admixture of 1 % of C60. This increase of the photocarrier gen- eration efficiency was accompanied by the successive increase in lifetime of the photocarriers upon adding more and more C60. Thus, the ultrafast photo-induced electron transfer from the semiconducting polymer to C60 not only enhances the charge carrier generation in the host polymer but also serves to prevent recombination by separating the charges and stabilizing them.[29] Definitive evidence of charge transfer and long-lived charge separation was obtained from light induced electron spin reso- nance (LESR) experiments.[10] Figure 5 shows the integrated ESR signal upon illuminating the MDMO±PPV/PCBM (where MDMO stands for poly(2-methoxy-5-(3,7-dimethyloctyloxy)-1,4- phenylene vinylene)) composites with light of hm = Ep±p* where Ep±p* is the energy gap of the conjugated polymer (donor). Two photo-induced ESR signals can be resolved; one at g = 2.0026 and the other at g = 1.9997. The higher g-value line is assigned to the conjugated polymer cation (polaron) and the lower g-value line to PCBM± anion.[30] The saturation behavior of the LESR of conju- gated polymer cation signal indicates a different relaxation mech- anism compared to the fullerene radical anion signal which is not saturating at all.[31] We can safely conclude from these studies that the photo-induced radicals in these polymer/fullerene composites are independent from each other and dissociated completely. 4. Towards Improved Efficiency Organic Photovoltaic Cells The use of organic bilayers with photo-induced electron transfer at the interface has been investigated heavily during the last couple of decades (for a summary see the litera- ture[11,32±35]). Tang demonstrated PV activity in small molecular bilayers which were vacuum deposited.[33] In this pioneering work Tang used a vacuum evaporated copper-phtalocyanine (250 )/perylene derivative (450 ) system sandwiched be- tween In2O3 and silver electrodes, with a white light PV power conversion efficiency of around 1 %. Extensive literature exists on the fabrication of solar cells based on small molecular dyes as well as donor±acceptor sys- tems.[36,37] Inorganic oxide semiconductors also were used to facilitate electron transfer from organic dyes onto inorganic nanoparticles to achieve charge separation and PV conver- sion.[38,39] Yamashita and co-workers reported a bilayer photo- diode based on the organic donor tetrathiafulvalene (TTF) and C60. [40] A recent approach to enhance the PV properties of organic solar cells by sensitization with fullerenes was intro- duced by Meissner et al.[41±44] and is displayed in Figure 6. The performance of a zinc-phthalocyanine (ZnPc)/N,NM¢-dimethyl- perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diimide (MPP) bilayer device was significantly enhanced by inserting a 30 nm thick C60± ZnPc composite layer between the ZnPc (50 nm) and the MPP (20 nm).[42] These devices delivered a short circuit current of 5.26 mA/cm2 under 860 W/m2 AM 1.5 solar simulators, an open circuit voltage of 0.39 V. Together with a fill factor of 0.45 the overall power efficiency was calculated as 1.05 %. For PV cells made with bilayers of conjugated polymer and C60, Fig. 5. Integrated light-induced electron spin resonance spectra of MDMO±PPV/ PCBM upon successive illumination with 2.41 eV argon ion laser. (Reproduced from [31] with permission of the American Physical Society.) Fig. 6. Schematic drawing of a small molecular solar cell with a sensitizing region of a mixed ZnPc + C60 layer embedded between MPP and ZnPc layers and its current/voltage characteristics. Electrodes used are Al and ITO. 20 Ó WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69469 Weinheim, 2001 1616-301X/01/0102-0020 $ 17.50+.50/0 Adv. Funct. Mater. 2001, 11, No. 1, February FE A TU R E A R TI C LE C. J. Brabec et al./Plastic Solar Cells monochromatic energy efficiencies as high as 1 % and incident photon to converted electron (IPCE) efficiencies as high as 15 % were measured.[45,46] The findings for the different bilayer systems investigated so far can be summarized the following way: although the quan- tum efficiency for photo-induced charge separation is near unity for a D/A pair, the energy conversion efficiency in a bilayer heterojunction device is limited: l Due to the molecular nature of the heterojunction, efficient charge separation occurs only close to the D/A interface, either within the exciton diffusion path or within the space charge region; thus, photoexcitations created far from the D/A junction recombine prior to diffusing to the hetero- junction. l Since charge separation is located to a rather small region of the photoactive device, the PV conversion efficiency is limited by the amount of photons absorbed within this region and materials with high molar absorption coeffi- cients are required. Further increase of the layer thickness of the single components would reduce the efficiency by the increased series resistance. 4.1. The ªBulk Heterojunctionº Concept Before analyzing results from donor/acceptor bulk hetero- junction solar cells based on conjugated polymer/fullerene composites, relevant results from single layer semiconducting polymer devices with asymmetric contacts (a low work func- tion metal on one side and a high work function metal on the opposite side, a MIM ªtunneling injection diodeº) are dis- cussed; such devices have been described by Parker.[5] A sche- matic cross-sectional band diagram of such devices is displayed in Figure 7. In forward bias, tunneling injection diodes exhibit relatively high efficiency electroluminescence, which is promis- ing for flat panel and/or flexible, large area display appli- cations. In reverse bias, on the other hand, the devices exhibit a strong photoresponse with a quantum yield >20 % (el/ph at ±10 V reverse bias).[6,47] Devices based on derivatives of poly- thiophene exhibited even better photoresponse (80 % el/ph at ±15 V), competitive with ultraviolet (UV) sensitized Si photo- diodes.[6,47] A PV response was observed under zero bias condi- tions.[6,47] The charge carrier concentration in these undoped, pristine materials is sufficiently low in dark so that the semi- conducting layer (several hundred nanometers) is fully deplet- ed; there is negligible band bending at the metal±polymer interface. Note, however, that the mobility of injected charge carriers is not symmetric; in most conjugated polymers, the electron mobility is lower than the hole mobility. Upon photo- induced charge carrier generation, an additional effect may be- come representative. For low charge carrier density materials photodoping may be sufficient in these materials to lead to in- terface effects such as photo-induced band bending or photo- induced space charge regions. Such effects are typical for organic semiconductors.[41,42] The exact nature of this band bending and barrier creation at the interfaces under light illu- mination will be an important parameter for optimizing the so- lar cell performance in these devices. For PV cells made with pure conjugated polymers, energy conversion efficiencies were typically 10±3±10±1 %, too low to be used in practical applications.[47±49] Consequently, interpenetrating phase separated D/A net- work composites i.e., ªbulk heterojunctionº would appear to be ideal PV materials.[12] Through control of the morphology of the phase separation into an interpenetrating network, one can achieve a high interfacial area within a bulk material. If any point in the composite is within a few nanometers of a D/A interface, such a composite is a ªbulk D/A heterojunctionº material. If the D/A networks in a device are bicontinuous, as shown schematically in Figure 3, the collection efficiency can be equally efficient. It is important to note, that the idealized schematic descrip- tion in Figure 3 is by far not realistic in any actual composite sample studied here. As shown below using atomic force microscopy (AFM) pictures, it is rather a disordered, juxtaposi- tion of islands of its two components. In addition, it is well known that polymer blends most often tend to cleave into separate phases rather than form one uniform medium. Decreasing the size of the islands results directly in increase of the effective contact area between the two components. Important progress has been made toward creating ªbulk D/A heterojunctionº materials.[12,13,24,50] Yu et al. utilized the bulk heterojunction formed in a solid-state composite of conjugated polymers and methanofullerene PCBM[12] with a short circuit current, Isc = 0.5 mA/cm 2 under 20 mW/cm2 monochromatic illumination, approximately two orders of magnitude higher than that of pure MEH±PPV tunnel diodes as well as of the MEH±PPV/C60 heterojunction device as described in the pre- vious section. Uniform films with even higher concentrations of the PCBM were cast from 1,2-dichlorobenzene so- lutions containing up to 1:4 weight ratio MEH±PPV/PCBM. The efficiencies of the devices are nearly independent of the incident illumination intensity. The groups of Friend in Cambridge and Heeger in Santa Barbara also simultaneously made a PV bulk hetero- junction using two different conjugated polymers.[13,24,50] Both approaches use MEH±PPV as donor conjugated poly- Fig. 7. Schematic band diagrams for single layer conjugated polymer devices at various values of forward bias. Forward bias is defined with respect to ITO. (Reproduced with permission of WILEY-VCH from reference [35]). Adv. Funct. Mater. 2001, 11, No. 1, February Ó WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69469 Weinheim, 2001 1616-301X/01/0102-0021 $ 17.50+.50/0 21 FE A TU R E A R TIC LE C. J. Brabec et al./Plastic Solar Cells The fill factor (FF) of solar cells is determined by FF = ImppVmpp/IscVoc (1) where Impp and Vmpp are the current and the voltage in the maximum power point of the I/V curve in the 4th quadrant. In general, a large serial resistance as well as a too small parallel resistance (shunt) tend to reduce the FF. From LEDs, interface layers like LiF or CsF and even SiOx are well known to reduce the interface barrier for electron injection at the cathode, if they are evaporated between the photoactive material and an Al electrode.[58] Figure 15 shows this enhancement of the diode properties of a MDMO±PPV/PCBM solar cell due to such an interfacial layer. The short circuit current is left almost unchanged and only a small increase in the open circuit voltage is observed (from 780 to 820 mV) due to the interfacial layer. The fill factor, FF, is increased from 0.5 to 0.62 by dropping down the serial resistance of the devices from ~200±400 X to ~20±50 X. The light absorption of the device was measured (using a reflection geometry) to be less than 55 % at 460 nm. This yields an internal quantum efficiency, or absorbed photon to con- verted electron, greater than 85 %. Since the Jsc of the devices was measured to have a linear dependence on the incident light intensity for values up to 80 mW/cm2, monochromatic power conversion efficiencies can be calculated from the IPCE data (Fig. 14b). Assuming Voc = 0.82 V and FF = 0.61 for all incident wavelengths a power conversion efficiency of 9.5 % at 488 nm for the chlorobenzene-based device is obtained. One of the limiting parameters in plastic solar cells is their mismatch to the solar spectrum. Typically, conjugated polymers such as MDMO±PPV, used for PVs have their peak absorption around 500 nm, which is clearly offset to the maximum in the photon flux of the sun, which peaks around 700 nm. The use of low bandgap polymers (Eg < 1.8 eV) to expand the spectral region of bulk heterojunction solar cells can enhance the spectral photon harvesting. Figure 16 shows the spectrally resolved photocurrent for a photodiode from low bandgap polymer (poly-(thiophene±pyrrole±thiophene±benzothiadiazole) (PTPTB) see Table 1) with and without PCBM. Spectra are normalized to their peak values. While the photocurrent generation for the pristine PTPTB device has the maximum at low wavelengths with a small tail extending to the infrared (IR), the PTPTB/PCBM/PMMA (PMMA = poly(methyl- methacrylate)) device shows efficient charge carrier generation in the region from 500±700 nm, resembling the absorption profile of the polymer.[55,59] PMMA was used to improve the film quality. For a device with MDMO±PPV instead of PMMA as host polymer, the spectral photocurrent is observed to show contributions from both polymers. The photocurrent of a MDMO±PPV/PCBM device is plotted as reference. This demonstration shows the easy production of multiple bandgap solar cells. 6. Outlook and Strategies Further optimization of device performance can be achieved by optimization of the device physics: Fig. 14. a) Optical absorption spectra of 100 nm thick MDMO±PPV/PCBM (1:4 by wt.) films spin-coated onto glass substrates from either toluene (broken line) or chlorobenzene (solid line) solutions. b) IPCE spectra for PV devices using these films as the active layer. Fig. 15. I/V curve in the 4th quadrant for a plastic solar cell with and without an interfacial layer of LiF beneath the Al electrode, illuminated with 80 mW/cm2 simulated AM 1.5 radiation. Fig. 16. Spectrally resolved photocurrent of a photodiode, where the active layer, either a low bandgap polymer PTPTB, or PTPTB/PCBM/PMMA or PTPTB/ PCBM/MDMO±PPV or MDMO±PPV/PCBM is sandwiched between ITO/ PEDOT and Al. Data were first calibrated to the response of a calibrated Si diode and then normalized to their response at 400 nm. 24 Ó WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH, D-69469 Weinheim, 2001 1616-301X/01/0102-0024 $ 17.50+.50/0 Adv. Funct. Mater. 2001, 11, No. 1, February FE A TU R E A R TI C LE C. J. Brabec et al./Plastic Solar Cells l Optimize the choice of metallic electrodes to achieve good ohmic contacts on both sides for collection of the oppo- sitely charged photocarriers. l Optimize the choice of the D/A pair (the energetics deter- mine the open circuit potential). In addition, the bandgap of the semiconducting polymer should be chosen for effi- cient harvesting of the solar spectrum. l Optimize the network morphology of the phase-separated composite material for enhanced transport and carrier gen- eration. The absorption and the mobility of the charge car- riers within the different components of the bulk hetero- junction have to be maximized. In organic PV elements generally two different tasks are to be clearly distinguished: The photo-induced charge generation (electron transfer efficiency) and the transport of created charges to the electrodes (charge carrier mobility). These two different tasks are expected to be fulfilled by one and the same material simultaneously. A possible strategy is to separate the two tasks by using separate components in a device for the charge transport and for the charge generation. In this millennium, PV energy conversion will gain in mo- mentum. This clean and regenerative energy source should be utilized by exploiting all possible mechanisms, materials, and devices. This work summarizes the progress in a special section of PV energy conversion: i.e., organic, bulk heterojunction so- lar cells. 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