American Chemical Society, Accounts of Chemical Research, 11(42), p. 1779-1787, 2009
DOI: 10.1021/ar800269u
Wiley-VCH Verlag, ChemInform, 16(41), 2010
Full text: Unavailable
When a material of low dielectric constant is excited electronically from the absorption of a photon, the Coulomb attraction between the excited electron and the hole gives rise to an atomic H-like quasi-particle called an exciton. The bound electron−hole pair also forms across a material interface, such as the donor/acceptor interface in an organic heterojunction solar cell; the result is a charge-transfer (CT) exciton. On the basis of typical dielectric constants of organic semiconductors and the sizes of conjugated molecules, one can estimate that the binding energy of a CT exciton across a donor/acceptor interface is 1 order of magnitude greater than kBT at room temperature (kB is the Boltzmann constant and T is the temperature). How can the electron−hole pair escape this Coulomb trap in a successful photovoltaic device?