Sources of Thermal Power Generation and Their Influence on the Operating Temperature of Organic Solar Cells

Hooman Mehdizadeh Rad; Kiran Sreedhar Ram; Farhad Mehdizadeh-Rad; David Ompong; Daniel Dodzi Yao Setsoafia; Naveen Elumalai; Furong Zhu; Jai Singh

doi:10.3390/nano12030420

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Sources of Thermal Power Generation and Their Influence on the Operating Temperature of Organic Solar Cells

Journal article

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Peer reviewed

Sources of Thermal Power Generation and Their Influence on the Operating Temperature of Organic Solar Cells

Hooman Mehdizadeh Rad, Kiran Sreedhar Ram, Farhad Mehdizadeh-Rad, David Ompong, Daniel Dodzi Yao Setsoafia, Naveen Elumalai, Furong Zhu and Jai Singh

Nanomaterials , Vol.12(3), pp.1-12

2022

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12030420

PMID: 35159768

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Abstract

organic solar cell

operating temperature

thermal power

energy off-sets

Thermal stability, closely associated with the operating temperature, is one of the desired properties for practical applications of organic solar cells (OSCs). In this paper, an OSC of the structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/P3HT:PCBM/ZnO/Ag was fabricated, and its current-voltage (J-V) characteristics and operating temperature were measured. The operating temperature of the same OSC was simulated using an analytical model, taking into consideration the heat transfer, charge carrier drift-diffusion and different thermal generation processes. The simulated results agreed well with the experimental ones. It was found that the thermalization of charge carriers above the band gap had the highest influence on the operating temperature of the OSCs. The energy off-set at the donor/acceptor interface in the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) was shown to have a negligible impact on the thermal stability of the OSCs. However, the energy off-sets at the electrode/charge-transporting layer and BHJ/charge-transporting layer interfaces had greater impacts on the operating temperature of OSCs at the short circuit current and maximum power point conditions. Our results revealed that a variation over the energy off-set range from 0.1 to 0.9 eV would induce an almost 10-time increase in the corresponding thermal power generation, e.g., from 0.001 to 0.01 W, in the cells operated at the short circuit current condition, contributing to about 16.7% of the total solar power absorbed in the OSC.

Details

Title: Sources of Thermal Power Generation and Their Influence on the Operating Temperature of Organic Solar Cells
Authors: Hooman Mehdizadeh Rad - Charles Darwin University
Kiran Sreedhar Ram - Charles Darwin University
Farhad Mehdizadeh-Rad - The University of Texas at Dallas
David Ompong - Charles Darwin University
Daniel Dodzi Yao Setsoafia - Charles Darwin University
Naveen Elumalai - Charles Darwin University
Furong Zhu - Hong Kong Baptist University
Jai Singh (Corresponding Author) - Charles Darwin University
Publication details: Nanomaterials , Vol.12(3), pp.1-12
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date published: 2022
DOI: 10.3390/nano12030420
ISSN: 2079-4991
PMID: 35159768
Copyright note: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Data Availability: The data presented in this study are available in this article.
Grant note: F.Z. thanks the support by the Research Grants Council, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (GRF/12302419, C5037-18GF, and N_HKBU201/19).
Organisation Unit: School of Science, Technology and Engineering
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991216648902621
Output Type: Journal article

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Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration; International collaboration
Web Of Science research areas: Chemistry, Multidisciplinary; Materials Science, Multidisciplinary; Nanoscience & Nanotechnology; Physics, Applied