(574a) Morphological Studies of Conjugated Polymer Based Materials Using Coarse-Grained Molecular Simulations [Invited Talk]

Organic solar cells consist of an active layer made of an electron donating species (e.g. conjugated polymer) and an electron accepting species (e.g. fullerene derivative PCBM). The efficiency of a solar cell is dependent on the morphology of the donor and acceptor materials. For high efficiency the morphology must have a) high interfacial area to facilitate charge separation, while being small enough so charge carriers can diffuse to the donor-acceptor interface before their energy is dissipated and b) continuous pathways for charge carriers to reach their respective electrodes. Donor-acceptor morphology is dependent on the chemistry and architecture of the conjugated polymer and its interactions with the acceptor material (fullerene derivatives). We use molecular simulations to understand the effects of conjugated polymer architecture, polymer chemistry, fullerene derivative chemistry, and processing conditions on liquid crystalline transition and phase separation within blends of conjugated polymer/PCBM blends and in systems containing conjugated block copolymers.