Organic Heterojunctions in Solar Cells

These are the levels or the states. It is important to understand the differences between the levels that refer to one electron level picture and states that refer to the whole molecule or system. The ionization potential of a molecule can be approximated as the HOMO, the energy or the inverse of the energy of the HOMO level. The electron affinity can be related to the energy of the LUMO level. But one must not forget that the ionization potential and electron affinity are characteristics of the whole molecule. The energy state diagram refer to states, the difference in energy between the ground state and the ionized state of the whole molecule. Where as HOMOS and LUMOS refer to electron levels. When organic solar cells are discussed, we must pay attention to the electron affinities and ionization potentials of the donor and acceptor components. An energy diagram includes the WA work function of the anode, Wc the work function of the cathode; similar to the diagram for light emitting diodes. The ionization potential of the donor is the difference between the neutral molecule and the energy it takes to take away an electron from that molecule. HOMO and LUMO levels are often seen in the literature but these are only approximations. We need to take into account are the ionization potentials and the electron affinities of both the donor and the acceptor. In order for this concept of the donor and acceptor to be valid, the ionization potential of the donor should be lower than that of the acceptor because the donor is the species that most easily gives away an electron. In this diagram the ionization energy of the donor is the distance between to top of the donor band and the vacuum level band above. Conversely, the electron affinity of the acceptor should be larger than the electron affinity of the donor.