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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Probing Charge Recombination In Organic Solar Cells, Ally C. Hurd, Awwad Alotaibi, Acacia Patterson, Obaid Alqahtani, James Doyle, Brian Akira Collins May 2024

Probing Charge Recombination In Organic Solar Cells, Ally C. Hurd, Awwad Alotaibi, Acacia Patterson, Obaid Alqahtani, James Doyle, Brian Akira Collins

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

Printable and flexible organic solar panels are promising sources of inexpensive, large-scale renewable energy, where panels can be manufactured by printing from polymer inks. There are some limitations to these types of solar cells, however. First, toxic halogenated solvents have historically been necessary to dissolve polymers to make the ink. In addition, organic solar cells typically have high rates of recombination, which limits their efficiency. Here, we use a transient photovoltage (TPV) technique to measure charge lifetimes in cells made from two different organic solvents. The first solvent is toxic, halogenated dichlorobenzene (DCB) which is typically used to make organic …


Modeling Recombination In Solar Cells, Paul Chery Jun 2018

Modeling Recombination In Solar Cells, Paul Chery

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

Solar cells are a competitive alternative to nonrenewable energy sources such as fossil fuels. However, the efficiency of these devices is limited by photogenerated carrier recombination. We use a finite difference numerical model to study recombination phenomena in the absorber layer of solar cells including alternate recombination models and the effects of spatial distribution of recombination centers. We compare the effect of using the constant lifetime approximation for recombination to the full Shockley-Read-Hall expression in Silicon solar cells and find that the constant lifetime approximation holds for high defect densities but not for high photon flux densities. Finally, we simulate …