Tuning the surface energies in a family of poly-3-alkylthiophenes bearing hydrophilic side-chains synthesized via direct arylation polymerization (DArP)
Recent work has identified surface energy as a key figure of merit in predicting the morphology of bulk heterojunction organic solar cells and organic alloy formation in ternary blend organic solar cells. An efficient way of tuning surface energy in conjugated polymers is by introducing functionalised side chains. Here, we present a systematic study on a family of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)-based random copolymers bearing five different functionalised side chains (ester, ether, diether, carbamate, nitrile) prepared by direct arylation polymerization (DArP) in terms of their effectiveness in tuning surface energy. This study also exemplifies the superior functional group tolerance in DArP compared to more traditional polymerization procedures. Water droplet contact angle measurements revealed that especially carbamates are highly effective in tuning surface energy, increasing the surface energy from 21.2 mN m −1 with P3HT to 25.5 mN m −1 and 28.6 mN m −1 in 25% and 50% carbamate functionalized copolymers, respectively. Importantly, by introducing a two-carbon-spacer between the conjugated backbone and the functional group, optical and electronic properties of P3HT could be largely maintained in the copolymers as determined by UV/Vis, cyclic voltammetry and space charge limited current hole mobility.
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Award ID(s):
Publication Date:
NSF-PAR ID:
10229120
Journal Name:
Polymer Chemistry
Volume:
12
Issue:
19
Page Range or eLocation-ID:
2840 to 2847
ISSN:
1759-9954
5. In this paper a photovoltaic system is proposed that achieves high energy yield by integrating bifacial silicon cells into a spectrum-splitting module. Spectrum splitting is accomplished using volume holographic optical elements to spectrally divide sunlight onto an array of photovoltaic cells with different bandgap energies. Light that is reflected from the ground surface onto the rear side of the module is converted by the bifacial silicon cells. The energy yield of the system is optimized by tuning the volume holographic element parameters, such as film thickness, index modulation, and construction point source positions. An example is presented for utility-scale illumination parameters in Tucson, Arizona, that attains an energy yield of$1010kw⋅<#comment/>hryr⋅<#comment/>m2$, which is 32.8% of the incident solar insolation.