Dynamique de séparation de charges à l'hétérojonction de semi-conducteurs organiques
A deep understanding of charge separation at organic semiconductor heterojunctions is instrumental in developing organic photovoltaic diodes with higher power conversion efficiencies, which could be a game changer for meeting sustainable global energy needs. The goal of this thesis is to describe the processes involved in charge separation at organic semiconductor heterojonctions, taking the special case of PCDTBT:PCBM as an example. We probe interfacial excitations using time-resolved spectroscopic methods covering timescales from 100 femtoseconds to 1 millisecond. These main spectroscopic methods are femtosecond stimulated Raman spectroscopy, time resolved fluorescence and transient absorption. Our results unambiguously show that charge transfer from PCDTBT to PCBM happens before the exciton is relaxed and localised, an experimental fact that in irreconcilable with semi-classical Marcus theory. The charge pair that is created then falls into two categories : un-trapped geminate polaron pairs or deeply trapped geminate polaron pairs. The former quickly relax to charge transfer exciton, which relax radiatively with a time constant of 1–2 nanosecond, while the latter form a charge transfer exciton on much longer timescales via tunneling. Our quantitative photo-physical model demonstrate that 2% of created excitation can never dissociate into free charge carrier, a figure that is in agreement with the high efficiencies reported for this type of system.
Exciton Polaron Raman Photoluminescence PCDTBT Polymer Organic semiconductor Spectroscopy Recombination Charge transfer