Among the different recombination mechanisms in organic solar cells the
photoluminescence (PL) of charge transfer excitons (CTEs) has been
identified has one of the most important, impacting both the open circuit
voltage and the short circuit current. Here, we study their recombination
dynamics, monitoring the decay of the PL on a time scale spanning three
orders of magnitude from nanoseconds to microseconds. As a model system we
investigate blends of the conjugated polymer
poly(2-methoxy-5-(3′,7′-dimethyloctyloxy)-1,4-phenylene-vinylene) (MDMO-PPV)
and the fullerene derivative [6,6]-phenyl C61-butyric acid methyl
ester (PCBM). We observe that the dynamics of recombination follows a
power-law, which is independent of sample morphology. Upon application of a
transient electric field, which is capable of separating the bound charge
pairs, we observe different dynamics of recombination only for the separated
pairs. Those also follow a power-law and show a strong dependence on the
film morphology.