Ultrafast Measurement Confirms Charge Generation through Cold Charge Transfer States

The role of excess energy in generation and extraction of charges through charge transfer (CT) states in polymer solar cells is a subject of debate. There are reports suggesting increase of charge generation yield with excess energy based on ultrafast experiments. On the other hand time delayed collection field measurements shows that excess photon energy has no effect in photovoltaic efficiency. Here we resolved this discrepancy by studying the dynamics of CT excitons and polarons in blends of medium gap copolymers. We found that low-lying charge transfer (CT) excitons can generate charges over a long time period (nanosecond) and contribute photocurrent on the bulk heterojunction devices. By performing resonant CT excitation as well as above gap excitation transient absorption measurements we investigated that the charges are generated more efficiently through low-lying CT states in efficient devices independent of excitation energy.