Unveiling of polymer/fullerene blend films morphology by ellipsometrically determined optical order within polymer and fullerene phases.

ABSTRACT: Optical properties of polymer/fullerene blend films upon thermal annealing are investigated by spectroscopic ellipsometry and described consistently within an optical model of the blend film. The optical model developed in this work treats both components, polymer and fullerene, as mixtures of reference materials, that is, their optically ordered and disordered phase. Then, the polymer/fullerene blend layer is also described as a mixture of these two components. In this manner, we extend an existing optical model, which accounts for the optical order within the polymer phases, on cases where the optically ordered PCBM phase occurs, too. Determination of the dielectric functions of all four reference materials allows for a unique quantitative characterization of a polymer/fullerene blend film by assigning to it thickness and the polymer to fullerene volume fraction of its layers as well as corresponding volume fractions of theirs optically ordered and disordered polymer and fullerene phases. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2018, 56, 1094–1100 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]