Defect mediated improved charge carrier dynamics in hybrid bulk-heterojunction solar cell induced by phase pure iron pyrite nanocubes.

In this article, the synthesis of phase pure iron pyrite nanocubes (FeS2 NCs) and their various effects on the charge carrier dynamics and photovoltaic performances of P3HT:PC71BM based hybrid bulk-heterojunction solar cells have been studied. The optimum doping concentration of FeS2 NCs was found to be 0.3 wt%. For the optimally doped devices, the short-circuit current density was found to get improved from 5.47 mA/cm2 to 7.99 mA/cm2 leading to an overall cell efficiency improvement from 2.10% to 3.22% as compared to the undoped reference devices. The enhancement in photovoltaic performance is mainly attributed to the formation of localized energy states near the band edges leading to higher carrier generation rate by 72% whereas carrier dissociation probability is also increased by 13%. Urbach energy estimation reveals that the optimally doped devices have achieved a relatively balanced amount of localized states resulting in reduced non-radiative recombination. Such localized defect state formation with FeS2 NCs doping was also found to have significant influences over the charge carrier dynamics of the active layer. Transient photocurrent and photovoltage studies revealed that FeS2 NCs assist in faster carrier extraction by reducing the transport time from 1.4 µs to 0.6 µs and by enhancing carrier recombination time from 51.7 µs to 78.9 µs for the reference and optimum devices respectively. Such an unorthodox approach of defect state assisted efficiency improvement demonstrates the importance of simultaneously understanding the charge carrier dynamics and photovoltaic performance for rational device optimization, and opens new prospects for developing high-efficiency solution processable hybrid devices.