Abstract
We studied the effect of nitrogen and methyl substitution on tris-(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq 3) with density functional theory, which has been adopted as an exciton blocking layer (EBL) in organic photovoltaic cells (OPVCs). The substitution of electron withdrawing nitrogen on the phenoxide moiety of Alq 3 lowers the highest molecular orbital (HOMO) level, thus photogenerated excitons can be effectively blocked in OPVC. Additional substitution of methyl on the pyridine moiety makes that Alq 3 has a smaller electron reorganization energy, which results in higher electron mobility with keeping HOMO level almost intact. Therefore, nitrogen and methyl simultaneous substitution shows high performance both in exciton blocking and electron mobility. This is the origins of the short circuit current enhancement in OPVC with 4-hydroxy-8-methyl-1,5-naphthyridine aluminum chelate (Alq 3 with the substitution of both nitrogen and methyl group) EBL.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 034704 |
| Journal | Journal of Chemical Physics |
| Volume | 137 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2012 Jul 21 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by Brain Korea 21 (BK21) project of the ministry of Education, Science and Technology and by a research project of the National Research Foundation of Korea (Grant No. 2012-0002303) and by the KIST Institutional Program (2E22735-12-069).
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Physics and Astronomy(all)
- Physical and Theoretical Chemistry