From binary to quaternary: high-tolerance of multi-acceptors enables development of efficient polymer solar cells [From binary to quaternary: high-tolerance of multi-acceptors enables efficient polymer solar cells]

Liu, Longzhu; Chen, Hui; Chen, Wei; He, Feng

doi:10.1039/C9TA00948E

From binary to quaternary: high-tolerance of multi-acceptors enables development of efficient polymer solar cells [From binary to quaternary: high-tolerance of multi-acceptors enables efficient polymer solar cells]

Journal Article · Thu Mar 14 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Journal of Materials Chemistry. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1039/C9TA00948E· OSTI ID:1508131

Liu, Longzhu ^[1]; Chen, Hui ^[2]; ^[3]; ^[2]

Southern Univ. of Science and Technology, Shenzhen (People's Republic of China); Harbin Inst. of Technology, Harbin (People's Republic of China)
Southern Univ. of Science and Technology, Shenzhen (People's Republic of China)
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States); The Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)

For optimum coverage of the optical spectrum and further enhancement of the carrier transport, ternary and even more multi-composition strategies have been universally explored. As PC₇₁BM and PC₆₁BM are both compatible with PTB7-Th and IEICO-4F takes advantage of optical absorption in the near-infrared region, we combined PTB7-Th:IEICO-4F:PC₇₁BM:PC₆₁BM quaternary compositions to fabricate high-efficiency polymer solar cells (PSCs) with good tolerance ratios of the fullerene acceptors. After blending the fullerene alloys PC₇₁BM and PC₆₁BM into the host PTB7-Th:IEICO-4F system, the optical response in the whole wavelength regime has been strengthened with significantly enhanced electron mobility. Concomitantly, the short-circuit current density (J_sc) surged from 22.07 to 24.37 mA cm^–2 and the fill factor (FF) ascended from 58.24% to 69.30%, which finally resulted in a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.52%, which is much higher than that of the binary control device (9.67%). This significant improvement is attributed to the fine-tuning of the morphology of the photo-active layer and feasible carrier transport. Interestingly, this finding implicates the synergistic effect of PC₇₁BM and PC₆₁BM to successfully enhancing the carrier transport. In addition, it demonstrates a broad tolerance of the acceptor proportions, resulting in higher PCE values for the quaternary devices as compared to the ternary devices. Lastly, generality for other systems evidences and provides guidelines for quaternary strategy utilization. Furthermore, the simplicity of quaternary strategies could be greatly beneficial to not yet elaborate commercial processes.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 1508131

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1499823

Journal Information:: Journal of Materials Chemistry. A, Journal Name: Journal of Materials Chemistry. A Journal Issue: 13 Vol. 7; ISSN JMCAET; ISSN 2050-7488

Publisher:: Royal Society of ChemistryCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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