Open AccessModeling the morphology evolution of organic solar cells
Author(s) -
Kai Bergermann
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
gamm archive for students
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2626-9724
DOI - 10.14464/gammas.v1i1.419
Subject(s) - fullerene , organic solar cell , solver , energy transformation , materials science , solar energy , work (physics) , solar cell , energy conversion efficiency , biological system , computer science , process engineering , thermodynamics , polymer , physics , chemistry , mathematical optimization , mathematics , optoelectronics , engineering , organic chemistry , biology , electrical engineering , composite material
Organic solar cells present a promising alternative for the generation of solar energy at lower material and production costs compared to widely used silicon-based solar cells. The major drawback of organic solar cells currently is a lower rate of energy conversion. Thus many research projects aim to improve the achievable efficiency. In this work a phase field model is used to mathematically describe the morphology evolution of the active layer composed of polymer as electron-donor and fullerene as electron-acceptor. The derivation of a chemical potential term and a surface energy term for the polymer-fullerene solution using the Flory-Huggins theory forms the basis to employ the Cahn-Hilliard equation. After including several specifics of the application in this non-linear partial differential equation of fourth order, an implementation of the model using the FEM solver software FEniCS provides some simulation results that qualitatively match results from the literature.