Charge-transfer state dynamics following hole and electron transfer in organic photovoltaic devices

The formation of bound electron–hole pairs, also called charge-transfer (CT) states, in organic-based photovoltaic devices is one of the dominant loss mechanisms hindering performance. Whereas CT state dynamics following electron transfer from donor to acceptor have been widely studied, there is not much known about the dynamics of bound CT states produced by hole transfer from the acceptor to the donor. In this letter, we compare the dynamics of CT states formed in the different charge-transfer pathways in a range of model systems. We show that the nature and dynamics of the generated CT states are similar in the case of electron and hole transfer. However the yield of bound and free charges is observed to be strongly dependent on the HOMO_D-HOMO_A and LUMO_D-LUMO_A energy differences of the material system. We propose a qualitative model in which the effects of static disorder and sampling of states during the relaxation determine the probability of accessing CT states favorable for charge separation.