Enhancement in power conversion efficiency in phthalocyanine based photovoltaic cell

The devices studied in this work consist of copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) and fullerene (C60) films between indium tin oxide (ITO) coated substrate as anode and aluminum (Al) as cathode. In order to have optimal performance of heterojunction photovoltaic cell, ITO/CuPc and C60/Al contact should be ohmic. Various ITO treatments can be used to improve ITO/CuPc contact. We have compared influence of different ITO treatments on the device performance. We have found that ITO treatment yields significant improvement in the performance of CuPc/C60 photovoltaic cells. The short circuit current of the cell fabricated on ITO substrate with optimal treatment is 9 times larger than that of the cell fabricated on untreated ITO substrate, open circuit voltage has been increased by 0.12V, resulting in 12 times improvement in the power conversion efficiency. The performance of phthalocyanine solar cells can be further improved using a mixed layer structure, ITO/CuPc/CuPc:C60/C60/Al, to increase exciton dissociation efficiency. The mixed layer is fabricated by co-evaporating the materials. For the mixed layer structure, short circuit current has been increased two times compared to the p-n heterojunction cell. This results in 0.16% power conversion efficiency under 98mW/cm2 AMI solar irradiation.link_to_subscribed_fulltex