Date of Award

11-1-2012

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Organizational Unit

College of Natual Science and Mathematics

First Advisor

Sean E. Shaheen, Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Nikos Kopidakis

Third Advisor

Davor Balzar

Fourth Advisor

Barry Zink

Fifth Advisor

Jao van de Lagemaat

Sixth Advisor

Dana C. Olson

Seventh Advisor

Maria M. Calbi

Keywords

Organic electronics, Organic photovoltaics, Photovoltaic, Solar

Abstract

This dissertation is the result of a series of studies involving hot press lamination of inverted organic photovoltaics. It first gives background and develops a lamination process for fabrication. Then, the process is used to answer fundamental questions about organic photovoltaics and to fabricate previously impossible or overly complicated devices. Finally, the author examines the scientific theory which describes the process and aligns that theory with related measurements.

The field of organic photovoltaics is introduced and the lamination process is developed and optimized. In the lamination process, part of the solar cell is deposited onto a rigid substrate, and the rest is deposited onto a flexible one. The two substrates are pressed together under heat to complete the device. Laminated devices are shown to perform as well or better than those made with standard fabrication methods, and the process shows benefits to both large scale production and scientific exploration of OPV devices.

The lamination process is then used to answer physical questions and solve problems related to OPV. After diversifying the procedure to include lamination at either the electron or hole contact, a series of semitransparent electrode materials are integrated into devices. These materials are difficult or impossible to integrate into inverted devices without lamination. Then bare metal contacts are pretreated and laminated into devices in order to investigate the mechanisms for time evolution in inverted devices. Finally, two active layers are laminated to make a tandem device. It is shown that the performance of the tandem is limited not by the procedure, but by the materials used in the interconnect layer between the two subcells.

An investigation is performed that explores the physics behind the basis of lamination: adhesion. Different mechanisms of adhesion are proposed, and calculations of adhesion forces based on known materials properties are made. The resulting range of calculated forces is quite large, but within the range of measured values for adhesion force. A general picture of the physics involved in lamination processes and their adhesion forces emerges.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Brian A. Bailey

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

135 p.

Discipline

Physics

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