Photovoltaic effect in arylenevinylene-co-pyrrolenevinylene (AVPV)

Arylenevinylene-co-pyrrolenevinylene (AVPV) is a promising candidate amongst the group of new photovoltaic materials. It is a low band gap organic material with a band gap of 1.84 eV and absorbs sunlight in 300–700 nm range. In this paper, we demonstrate the photovoltaic effect in an organic bulk heterojunction photovoltaic device based on the blend of AVPV as an electron donor and [6,6]-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) as the acceptor. The short-circuit current density of the device was of the order of 0.55 μA cm−2 with an open-circuit voltage of 0.7 V, measured under 1 sun illumination of AM 1.5 through a calibrated solar simulator. Fill factor was estimated to be 12%. Further, the tests conducted after 2 weeks showed that short-circuit current was 0.21 μA cm−2 and open-circuit voltage was 0.5 V with a fill factor of 9.8%, suggesting the possibility of stable AVPV-based organic solar cell (OSC).