Achieving Bicontinuous Microemulsion Like Morphologies in Organic Photovoltaics

It is believed that the optimal morphology of an organic solar cell may be characterized by cocontinuous, interpenetrating donor and acceptor domains with nanoscale dimensions and high interfacial areas. One well-known equilibrium morphology that fits these characteristics is the bicontinuous microemulsion achieved by the addition of block copolymer compatibilizers to flexible polymer-polymer blends. However, there does not exist design rules for using block copolymer compatibilizers to produce bicontinuous microemulsion morphologies from the conjugated polymer/fullerene mixtures typically used to form the active layer of organic solar cells. Motivated by these considerations, we use single chain in mean field simulations to study the equilibrium phase behavior of semiflexible polymer + flexible-semiflexible block copolymer + solvent mixtures. Based on our results, we identify design rules for producing large channels of morphologies with characteristics like that of the bicontinuous microemulsion.