Utilizing Wide Band Gap, High Dielectric Constant Nanoparticles as Additives in Organic Solar Cells
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Ames National Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), operated by and located on the campus of Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa.
For more than 70 years, the Ames National Laboratory has successfully partnered with Iowa State University, and is unique among the 17 DOE laboratories in that it is physically located on the campus of a major research university. Many of the scientists and administrators at the Laboratory also hold faculty positions at the University and the Laboratory has access to both undergraduate and graduate student talent.
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECpE) contains two focuses. The focus on Electrical Engineering teaches students in the fields of control systems, electromagnetics and non-destructive evaluation, microelectronics, electric power & energy systems, and the like. The Computer Engineering focus teaches in the fields of software systems, embedded systems, networking, information security, computer architecture, etc.
History
The Department of Electrical Engineering was formed in 1909 from the division of the Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering. In 1985 its name changed to Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering. In 1995 it became the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
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1909-present
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- Department of Electrical Engineering (1909-1985)
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering (1985-1995)
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- College of Engineering (parent college)
- Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering (predecessor)
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Abstract
We experimentally and theoretically investigate the effects of utilizing BaTiO3 nanoparticles as additives in polythiophene/fullerene solar cells. BaTiO3 nanoparticles were chosen because of their multifaceted potential for increasing exciton dissociation (due to their high dielectric constant) and light scattering. To achieve stable suspensions for device fabrication, the nanoparticles were functionalized with organic ligands. Solar cells fabricated in air showed ∼40% enhancement in the photocurrent primarily due to string-like aggregates of functionalized BaTiO3 particles that increase light absorption without hindering charge collection. Solar cells fabricated in an inert atmosphere yielded overall more efficient devices, but the string-like aggregates were absent and enhancement in photocurrent was up to ∼6%. Simulations with the excitonic drift-diffusion model demonstrate that a bare nanoparticle significantly increases exciton dissociation, whereas the functional group negates this effect. Simulations utilizing the scattering matrix method reveal that absorption enhancements caused by light scattering increase as the nanoparticles aggregate into string-like structures. These results offer insights for morphological design of ternary-blend bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells.
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This article is published as Gebhardt, Ryan S., Pengfei Du, Akshit Peer, Mitch Rock, Michael R. Kessler, Rana Biswas, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, and Sumit Chaudhary. "Utilizing Wide Band Gap, High Dielectric Constant Nanoparticles as Additives in Organic Solar Cells." The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 119, no. 42 (2015): 23883-23889. DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcc.5b08581. Posted with permission.