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High‐Performance All‐Polymer Solar Cells Enabled by n‐Type Polymers with an Ultranarrow Bandgap Down to 1.28 eV

Journal Article · · Advanced Materials
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [3];  [1];  [2];  [4];  [1]
  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering and The Shenzhen Key Laboratory for Printed Organic Electronics Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) No. 1088, Xueyuan Road Shenzhen Guangdong 518055 China
  2. Department of Chemistry Korea University 145 Anam‐ro, Seongbuk‐gu Seoul 136–713 Republic of Korea
  3. Australian Synchrotron ANSTO 800 Blackburn Road Clayton Victoria 3168 Australia
  4. Department of Materials Science and Engineering Monash University Wellington Road Clayton Victoria 3800 Australia
Abstract

Compared to organic solar cells based on narrow‐bandgap nonfullerene small‐molecule acceptors, the performance of all‐polymer solar cells (all‐PSCs) lags much behind due to the lack of high‐performance n‐type polymers, which should have low‐aligned frontier molecular orbital levels and narrow bandgap with broad and intense absorption extended to the near‐infrared region. Herein, two novel polymer acceptors, DCNBT‐TPC and DCNBT‐TPIC, are synthesized with ultranarrow bandgaps (ultra‐NBG) of 1.38 and 1.28 eV, respectively. When applied in transistors, both polymers show efficient charge transport with a highest electron mobility of 1.72 cm 2 V −1 s −1 obtained for DCNBT‐TPC. Blended with a polymer donor, PBDTTT‐E‐T, the resultant all‐PSCs based on DCNBT‐TPC and DCNBT‐TPIC achieve remarkable power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 9.26% and 10.22% with short‐circuit currents up to 19.44 and 22.52 mA cm −2 , respectively. This is the first example that a PCE of over 10% can be achieved using ultra‐NBG polymer acceptors with a photoresponse reaching 950 nm in all‐PSCs. These results demonstrate that ultra‐NBG polymer acceptors, in line with nonfullerene small‐molecule acceptors, are also available as a highly promising class of electron acceptors for maximizing device performance in all‐PSCs.

Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0012704
OSTI ID:
1632769
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1690123
Journal Information:
Advanced Materials, Journal Name: Advanced Materials Journal Issue: 30 Vol. 32; ISSN 0935-9648
Publisher:
Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
Germany
Language:
English

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