Charge Carrier Extraction by Linearly Increasing Voltage:Analytic framework and ambipolar transients

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive analytical solution for charge extraction by linearly increasing voltage (CELIV), extending the theory beyond low conductivity approximations and validating it with experimental data on organic solar cells.

Contribution

It introduces the full analytical solution for CELIV, generalizes the theoretical framework, and incorporates ambipolar transport for better experimental data fitting.

Findings

Analytical solution matches experimental data well when ambipolar transport is included.

Limitations of previous low conductivity approximation are demonstrated.

Parametric equations for mobility and charge density are provided for broad application.

Abstract

Up to now the basic theoretical description of charge extraction by linearly increasing voltage (CELIV) is solved for a low conductivity approximation only. Here we present the full analytical solution, thus generalize the theoretical framework for this method. We compare the analytical solution and the approximated theory, showing that especially for typical organic solar cell materials the latter approach has a very limited validity. Photo-CELIV measurements on poly(3-hexyl thiophene-2,5-diyl):[6,6]-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester based solar cells were then evaluated by fitting the current transients to the analytical solution. We found that the fit results are in a very good agreement with the experimental observations, if ambipolar transport is taken into account, the origin of which we will discuss. Furthermore we present parametric equations for the mobility and the charge carrier density, which can be applied over the entire experimental range of parameters.