Enhanced surface losses of organic solar cells induced by efficient polaron pair dissociation at the metal/organic interface

As a growing importance is placed on developing more efficient organic solar cells, understanding the behavior of free charge carriers at the metal/organic (M/O) interface is critical. One of the current challenges is understanding surface losses, essentially the loss of free charge carriers at the electrode/organic interface. In this paper, we use device model simulations to study such phenomena and we pay particular attention to the role of polaron pair (PP) M/O interfacial dissociation. The origin of surface losses is through the extraction of free charge carriers from the wrong electrodes, or direct surface recombination of PPs. Through simulation, we find that a high injection barrier leads to a large surface loss. In addition, surface loss increases with both the interfacial dissociation rate and PP diffusivity. Efficient interfacial dissociation can significantly enhance surface losses if the PP diffusivity is relatively large. Furthermore, current voltage characteristics reveal that surface losses undermine the device operating parameters and efficiency. Interlayers inserted at the M/O interface could block wrong electrode carriers, suppress the interfacial dissociation and reduce surface losses.