Upconversion-Triggered Charge Separation in Polymer Semiconductors

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• 作者：Yu Jin JangEunah Kim ; Seonghyeon Ahn ; Kyungwha Chung ; Jihyeon Kim ; Heejun Kim ; Huan Wang ; Jiseok Lee ; Dong-Wook Kim ; Dong Ha Kim
• 刊名：The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：January 19, 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：8
• 期：2
• 页码：364-369
• 全文大小：418K
• ISSN：1948-7185

文摘

Upconversion is a unique optical property that is driven by a sequential photon pumping and generation of higher energy photons in a consecutive manner. The efficiency improvement in photovoltaic devices can be achieved when upconverters are integrated since upconverters contribute to the generation of extra photons. Despite numerous experimental studies confirming the relationship, fundamental explanations for a real contribution of upconversion to photovoltaic efficiency are still in demand. In this respect, we suggest a new approach to visualize the upconversion event in terms of surface photovoltage (SPV) by virtue of Kelvin probe force microscopy (KPFM). One of the most conventional polymer semiconductors, poly(3-hexyl thiophene) (P3HT), is employed as a sensitizer to generate charge carriers by upconverted light. KPFM measurements reveal that the light upconversion enabled the formation of charge carriers in P3HT, resulting in large SPV of −54.9 mV. It confirms that the energy transfer from upconverters to P3HT can positively impact the device performance in organic solar cells (OSCs).