Publication date: 15th December 2025
Understanding the relationships between processing conditions and printed thin-film morphologies is of paramount significance for the optimized fabrication of organic solar cells. For this purpose, a Phase-Field simulation framework was recently developed to simulate nanostructure formation in solution-deposited organic active layers. The model captures the interplay of crucial physical phenomena (i.e., amorphous demixing, crystallization, evaporation, and hydrodynamics), which shape the film morphologies at the nanoscale, and are responsible for the spatial arrangements of the phase domains that are eventually quenched out of equilibrium.
This talk reviews the different morphology formation regimes predicted by the Phase-Field model for crystallizing organic material mixtures, thereby addressing the fundamental thermodynamic and kinetic factors that control the nanostructural evolution (e.g., amorphous material incompatibility, diffusion-limitations, composition-dependent diffusivity, etc.). The provided insights are subsequently applied to a practical investigation case, namely the elucidation of the mutual influence of crystallization and spinodal decomposition on an organic bulk heterojunction upon a thermal annealing treatment. Simulation results are compared against Scanning Electron Microscopy images of the blend at several annealing stages, and the model predictions are found in excellent agreement with the experiments. This allows to confidently unravel the sequence of structuring processes that take place within the system, and explain under which conditions the thermal treatment is beneficial for the performance of the photovoltaic device.
Overall, the Phase-Field approach is shown to provide a detailed mechanistic comprehension of the phase transformations occurring during the solution-processing of organic photoactive mixtures. Therefore, it presents a very promising potential to derive physically-motivated design strategies for efficient and robust organic solar cell manufacturing.
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