A computational study on optimal design for organic tandem solar cells

A new model is developed by combining the optical model and the drift-diffusion model to optimize the thicknesses of active layers of individual sub-cells for high performance of organic tandem solar cell. When the photovoltaic properties of tandem organic solar cells based on poly(2,6-(4,4-bis-(2-ethylhexyl)-4H-cyclopenta (2,1-b;3,4-b') dithiophene)-alt-4,7-(2,1,3-benzo-thiadiazole))/(6,6)-phenyl C71-butyric acid methyl ester and poly(3-hexylthiophene)/(6,6)-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl ester are calculated as functions of thicknesses of individual sub-cells using the new model, it is found that the optimum thickness pair of active layers is 150 and 120 nm for the front and back sub-cell, respectively. Comparison of simulation with experiment reveals that the simulated results are very consistent with experimental ones. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.