Theoretical study of the impact of the D/A system polymer and anodic interfacial layer on inverted organic solar cells (BHJ) performance

Abstract In this paper, we numerically study the Bulk Heterojunction (BHJ) inverted organic solar cells (OSCs) of ITO/ETL/POLYMER:PCBM/HTL/Ag using the effective medium model (EMM) with SCAPS-1D potential numerical tool. This model contributes to the charge transport processes understanding. We investigate the influence of two elements: the polymer material of the active layer poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)/polythieno[3,4-b]-thiophene-co-benzodithiophene (PTB7), and the anodic interfacial film (HTL) Poly (3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene):poly (styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS)/molybdenum trioxide (MoO3) on the electrical and optical performance of the devices: open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current (Jsc), fill factor (FF) power conversion efficiency (PCE), and the external quantum efficiency (EQE). Our results indicate an efficiency improvement (PCE) of 5.73% for the PTB7 solar cell compared to the P3HT of 4.88%. Also, the PCE of the device increases further to 5.92% with the modification of the anodic thin film PEDOT:PSS by MoO3. The simulated results show a good agreement with the results published in theory.