Effects of Thermal Annealing Upon the Morphology of Polymer–Fullerene Blends

Abstract

Grazing incidence X‐ray scattering (GIXS) is used to characterize the morphology of poly(3‐hexylthiophene) (P3HT)–phenyl‐C61‐butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) thin film bulk heterojunction (BHJ) blends as a function of thermal annealing temperature, from room temperature to 220 °C. A custom‐built heating chamber for in situ GIXS studies allows for the morphological characterization of thin films at elevated temperatures. Films annealed with a thermal gradient allow for the rapid investigation of the morphology over a range of temperatures that corroborate the results of the in situ experiments. Using these techniques the following are observed: the melting points of each component; an increase in the P3HT coherence length with annealing below the P3HT melting temperature; the formation of well‐oriented P3HT crystallites with the (100) plane parallel to the substrate, when cooled from the melt; and the cold crystallization of PCBM associated with the PCBM glass transition temperature. The incorporation of these materials into BHJ blends affects the nature of these transitions as a function of blend ratio. These results provide a deeper understanding of the physics of how thermal annealing affects the morphology of polymer–fullerene BHJ blends and provides tools to manipulate the blend morphology in order to develop high‐performance organic solar cell devices.