Impact of solvent additive on exciton dissociation in P3HT : EP-PDI blend film via controlling morphology

Suitable solvent additives provide an effective means to control the morphology of polymer blend films. In this work, we systematically investigate the impact of the solvent additive chloronaphthalene (CN) on the morphology of P3HT : EP-PDI blends. The optimum volume fraction of solvent additive CN was found to be 0.5 vol% by atom force microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. UV–visible absorption spectroscopy and grazing incidence x-ray diffraction indicate that the crystallinity of both the P3HT and EP-PDI domains significantly decreased in the blends with 0.5 vol% CN. Grazing incidence small-angle x-ray scattering results show that the size of the small EP-PDI aggregation decreases from 44–22 nm with the addition of CN. Time-resolved photoluminescence measurement reveals that the decreased EP-PDI domains give rise to increased donor–acceptor interfacial areas, which not only facilitate the exciton dissociation, but suppresses the formation of the EP-PDI intermolecular state. (paper)