Formation of Well-Ordered Heterojunctions in Polymer:PCBM Photovoltaic Devices

The nanoscale morphology in polymer:PCBM based photovoltaic devices is a major contributor to overall device performance. The disordered nature of the phase‐separated structure, in combination with the small length scales involved and the inherent difficulty of reproducing the exact morphologies when spin‐coating and annealing thin blend films, have greatly hampered the development of a detailed understanding of how morphology impacts photo­voltaic device functioning. In this paper we demonstrate a double nano­imprinting process that allows the formation of nanostructured polymer:PCBM heterojunctions of composition and morphology that can be selected independently. We fabricated photovoltaic (PV) devices with extremely high densities (1014 mm−2) of interpenetrating nanoscale columnar features (as small as 25 nm; at or below the exciton diffusion length) in the active layer. By comparing device results of different feature sizes and two different polymer:PCBM combinations, we demonstrate how double imprinting can be a powerful tool to systematically study different parameters in polymer photovoltaic devices. Double nanoimprinting of organic layers allows the formation nanostructured polymer:PCBM heterojunctions with interpenetrating nanoscale columnar features as small as 25 nm. A systematic variation of the feature sizes provides a direct probe into the influence of morphology on photovoltaic device performance.