As the need for new renewable energy sources increases, research into the emerging field of organic photovoltaics has kept up because of its many favorable attributes. Polymer and, more recently, small molecule organic compounds have shown promise to become economical in the bulk heterojunction architecture, but a deeper morphological and photophysical understanding is needed in order to maximize efficiencies.

This thesis is aimed at characterizing organic bulk heterojunction devices through photoconductive atomic force microscopy as well as transient absorption spectroscopy in order to gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms in which charge is generated.