APL Materials (Feb 2023)

Ambipolar charge transport in a non-fullerene acceptor

  • Franziska H. Hasenburg,
  • Kun-Han Lin,
  • Bas van der Zee,
  • Paul W. M. Blom,
  • Denis Andrienko,
  • Gert-Jan A. H. Wetzelaer

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0137073
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 2
pp. 021105 – 021105-8

Abstract

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Charge transport is one of the key factors in the operation of organic solar cells. Here, we investigate the electron and hole transport in the non-fullerene acceptor (NFA) IT-4F, by a combination of space-charge-limited current measurements and multiscale molecular simulations. The electron and hole mobilities are fairly balanced, amounting to 2.9 × 10−4 cm2 V−1 s−1 for electrons and 2.0 × 10−5 cm2 V−1 s−1 for holes. Orientational ordering and electronic couplings facilitate a better charge-percolating network for electrons than for holes, while ambipolarity itself is due to sufficiently high electron affinity and low ionization energy typical for narrow-gap NFAs. Our findings provide a molecular-level understanding of the balanced hole and electron transport in an archetypical NFA, which may play a key role in exciton diffusion and photogenerated hole transfer in organic solar cells.