Dipole induced anomalous S-shape I-V curves in polymer solar cells

TLDR: In this article, the authors used poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6, 6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester as their model polymer system and investigate different device structures using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy as their primary tool to investigate the reason for this S-shaped kink.

Abstract: A kink is sometimes seen in the I-V curves for organic solar cells. In literature charge blocking has been speculated to be responsible for such kind of anomalous features. In this manuscript, we use poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6, 6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester as our model polymer system and investigate different device structures using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy as our primary tool to investigate the reason for this S-shaped kink. We attribute this anomalous feature to the presence of strong interface dipoles. We further propose a model based on the standard set of Poisson equation, continuity equation, and current density equations including both drift and diffusion components.