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| Author(s): |
Eliézer Fernando de Oliveira
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | Bauru. 2016-12-05. |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências. Bauru |
| Defense date: | 2016-11-28 |
| Advisor: | Francisco Carlos Lavarda |
| Abstract | |
Organic materials have been used in various types of electronic and optoelectronic devices, with prominent application in solar cells. Solar cells in which the active layers are composed of organic materials already reach efficiencies of around 12% in the conversion of solar energy into electricity. Although these materials have advantages in relation to the final cost and processing compared to the inorganics, the scientific community still faces problems related to intrinsic properties, such as low oxidation stability and high bandgap energy; thus, it is desirable to find new organic materials that overcome these problems. This work aimed at the search for new organic materials – specifically conjugated polymers – for applications in active layers of solar cells employing theoretical methods of material modeling of semi-empirical and DFT theory levels. The first part of this work focuses on the study of new copolymers of similar comonomers and new P3HT derivatives. Here it was observed that, through chemical substitutions made in P3HT, one may find new polymers with appropriate values for the energies of the frontier molecular orbitals and increased charge mobility, properties that are closely related to the efficiency and stability that the solar cell can achieve. One of the novel polymers found which have potential for use in active layers was the fluorinated P3HT, later confirmed by experimental works. For copolymers of similar comonomers, it was found that the electronic and optical properties of these materials exhibit a linear dependence with the same properties and the monomers proportion of the homopolymers that were used as comonomers in the construction of the copolymer; most important is that through this linear relationship one may design new copolymers of similar comonomers before a possible synthesis. The second part of this study evaluated the methodologies for modeling of organic materials based on (TD)DFT that would be viable for a proper theoretical description of the optical properties. It was found that a reliable prediction of the vertical transition energy from the ground state of conjugated polymers can be obtained with the M06HF functional adding a correction factor of -0.75 eV in its obtained energies. Regarding the excited state optical absorption, the B3LYP functional do not correctly predicts the transition energy between the excited states, while more reliable results can be obtained with BHLYP and CAM-B3LYP functionals compared to the available experimental data. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 12/21983-0 - ELECTRONIC STRUCTURE OF ORGANIC MATERIALS FOR APPLICATIONS IN SOLAR CELLS' ACTIVE LAYERS |
| Grantee: | Eliezer Fernando de Oliveira |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate |