Power conversion efficiency enhancement in OPV devices using spin 1/2 molecular additives

We investigated the power conversion efficiency of bulk heterojunction OPV cells based on the low bandgap polymer PTB7, blend with C61-PCBM. We also employed the technique of photo-induced absorption, PA; electrical and magneto-PA (MPA) techniques to understand the details of the photocurrent generation process in this blend. We found that spin 1/2 molecular additives, such as Galvinoxyl (Gxl) radicals dramatically enhance the cell efficiency; we obtained 20{\%} increase in photocurrent upon Gxl doping with 2{\%} weight. We explain our finding by the ability of the spin 1/2 radicals to interfere with the known major loss mechanism in the cell due to recombination of charge transfer exciton at the D-A interface via triplet excitons in the polymer donors.