Effect of annealing copper phthalocyanine on the performance of interdigitated bulk-heterojunction organic photovoltaic cells

Organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells with improved efficiency using thermal annealing-induced nanostructured copper phthalocyanine as a donor layer were fabricated. A power conversion efficiency of 1.47% in the OPV cell with interdigitated CuPc/C ₆₀ bulk heterojunction has been obtained under AM 1.5 solar illumination at an intensity of 100 mW/cm ², which is higher than 0.63% of CuPc/C60 planar cell. Through varying the annealing temperature of CuPc films, the influence of interface morphology and crystallinity of CuPc films on the performance of OPV cells was systematically studied. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and spectrophotometry were used to characterize the CuPc films. The results showed that at an optimal annealing temperature, the crystalline nature and vertical orientation of nanostructured CuPc have been modified, which can facilitate the separation of interfacial electron-hole pairs and charge carrier transport to electrodes.