The simulation of organic solar cells and its comparison to experimental results

Abstract

The simulation of bulk heterojunction organic solar cell was performed by Comsol Multiphysics software which was consistently described by the voltage- current and voltage- power characteristics (electric characteristics). In this study, we compared the experimental data to simulation one of the OC1C10PPV:PCBM (poly[2-methoxy-5-(3’7’-dimethyloctyloxy)-p-phenylene vinylene]: (6,6)-phenylC61-butyric acid methylester) for the validation and verification of software results and performance initially. Then the simulation of other components for P3HT:PCBM (poly(3-hexylthiophene) and PCPDTBT:PCBM (poly[2,6-(4,4-bis-(2-ethylhexyl)-4H-cyclo-penta[2,1-b;3,4-b0]dithiophene)-alt-4,7-(2,1,3-benzothiadiazole) were studied. As assumption the parameters such as temperature and electron affinity were constant, the power conversion efficiency, external quantum efficiency, fill factor, Voc, Jsc, and current changes along with the active layer thickness were studied. The simulation results predicted the power conversion efficiency for OC1C10PPV:PCBM and P3HT:PCBM is 2.7% and 5% respectively, which is indicated the reliability of simulation for organic solar cells.