Efficient and thermally stable organic solar cells based on small molecule donor and polymer acceptor

Journal Article · Mon Jul 22 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10984-6· OSTI ID:1624168

Zhang, Zijian ^[1]; Miao, Junhui ^[2]; Ding, Zicheng ^[3]; Kan, Bin ^[4]; Lin, Baojun ^[5]; Wan, Xiangjian ^[4]; Ma, Wei ^[5]; Chen, Yongsheng ^[4]; Long, Xiaojing ^[3]; Dou, Chuandong ^[3]; Zhang, Jidong ^[3]; Liu, Jun ^[3]; Wang, Lixiang ^[3]

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1. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, P. R. China; DOE/OSTI
2. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China; University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China
3. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, China
4. Key Laboratory for Functional Polymer Materials and Centre for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Institute of Polymer Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, China
5. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China

Efficient organic solar cells (OSCs) often use combination of polymer donor and small molecule acceptor. Herein we demonstrate efficient and thermally stable OSCs with combination of small molecule donor and polymer acceptor, which is expected to expand the research field of OSCs. Typical small molecule donors show strong intermolecular interactions and high crystallinity, and consequently do not match polymer acceptors because of large-size phase separation. We develop a small molecule donor with suppressed π-π stacking between molecular backbones by introducing large steric hindrance. As the result, the OSC exhibits small-size phase separation in the active layer and shows a power conversion efficiency of 8.0%. Moreover, this OSC exhibits much improved thermal stability, i.e. maintaining 89% of its initial efficiency after thermal annealing the active layer at 180 °C for 7 days. These results indicate a different kind of efficient and stable OSCs.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: MOST and Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences; National Key Research and Development Program of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China; USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 1624168
• Journal Information: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 10; ISSN 2041-1723
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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