Universal and versatile morphology engineering via hot fluorous solvent soaking for organic bulk heterojunction

Shan, Tong; Zhang, Yi; Wang, Yan; Xie, Ziyi; Wei, Qingyun; Xu, Jinqiu; Zhang, Ming; Wang, Cheng; Bao, Qinye; Wang, Xin; Chen, Chun-Chao; Huang, Jingsong; Chen, Qi; Liu, Feng; Chen, Liwei; Zhong, Hongliang

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-19429-x

Title: Universal and versatile morphology engineering via hot fluorous solvent soaking for organic bulk heterojunction

Journal Article · Wed Nov 04 00:00:00 EST 2020 · Nature Communications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19429-x· OSTI ID:1828546

^[1]; Zhang, Yi ^[1];

^[1]; Xie, Ziyi ^[1]; Wei, Qingyun ^[1]; Xu, Jinqiu ^[1]; Zhang, Ming ^[1]; Wang, Cheng ^[2]; Bao, Qinye ^[3];

^[4]; Chen, Chun-Chao ^[1]; Huang, Jingsong ^[5];

^[2];

^[1];

^[6];

^[1]

Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. (China)
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Suzhou (China)
East China Normal Univ. (ECNU), Shanghai (China)
Burker (Beijing) Scientific Technology Co., Ltd, Beijing (China)
Univ. of Oxford, Suzhou (China)
Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ. (China); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Suzhou (China)

After explosive growth of efficiency in organic solar cells (OSCs), achieving ideal morphology of bulk heterojunction remains crucial and challenging for advancing OSCs into consumer market. Herein, by utilizing the amphiphobic nature and temperature-dependent miscibility of fluorous solvent, hot fluorous solvent soaking method is developed to optimize the morphology with various donor/acceptor combinations including polymer/small-molecule, all-polymer and all-small-molecule systems. By immersing blend film into hot fluorous solvent which is utilized as liquid medium with better thermal conductivity, the molecular reorganization is accelerated. Furthermore, fluorous solvent can be miscible with the residue of chloroform and chloronaphthalene above upper critical solution temperature. This mixed solvent diffuses around inside the active layer and selectively promotes molecular reorganization, leading to optimized morphology. Compared to widely-used thermal annealing, this approach processed under mild conditions achieves superior photovoltaic performance, indicating the practicality and universality for morphological optimization in OSCs as well as other optoelectronic devices.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Ministry of Science and Technology of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; 2016YFA0200700; 21604053; 21625304; 21875280

OSTI ID:: 1828546

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (66)

Effect of Alcohol Treatment on the Performance of PTB7:PC ₇₁ BM Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells Guo, Shuai; Cao, Biye; Wang, Weijia ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 7, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1021/am5079418	journal	February 2015
Understanding the High Performance of over 15% Efficiency in Single‐Junction Bulk Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells Karki, Akchheta; Vollbrecht, Joachim; Dixon, Alana L. Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 48 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201903868	journal	October 2019
Fabrication of Collagen Films with Enhanced Mechanical and Enzymatic Stability through Thermal Treatment in Fluorous Media Zhang, Lan; Gopalakrishnan, Sanjana; Li, Kai ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 12, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b18256	journal	January 2020
Removal of Residual Diiodooctane Improves Photostability of High-Performance Organic Solar Cell Polymers Tremolet de Villers, Bertrand J.; O’Hara, Kathryn A.; Ostrowski, David P. Chemistry of Materials, Vol. 28, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.5b04346	journal	January 2016
Probing the pathways of free charge generation in organic bulk heterojunction solar cells Kurpiers, Jona; Ferron, Thomas; Roland, Steffen Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04386-3	journal	May 2018
Functional Scanning Force Microscopy for Energy Nanodevices Chen, Xi; Lai, Junqi; Shen, Yanbin Advanced Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 48 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201802490	journal	August 2018
Chemistry in fluorous media: a user's guide to practical considerations in the application of fluorous catalysts and reagents P. Barthel-Rosa, Luis; A. Gladysz, J. Coordination Chemistry Reviews, Vol. 190-192 https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-8545(99)00102-2	journal	September 1999
Ternary Organic Solar Cells with Efficiency >16.5% Based on Two Compatible Nonfullerene Acceptors Song, Jiali; Li, Chao; Zhu, Lei Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 52 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201905645	journal	November 2019
Achieving over 16% efficiency for single-junction organic solar cells Fan, Baobing; Zhang, Difei; Li, Meijing Science China Chemistry, Vol. 62, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-019-9457-5	journal	March 2019
Efficient Organic Solar Cell with 16.88% Efficiency Enabled by Refined Acceptor Crystallization and Morphology with Improved Charge Transfer and Transport Properties Zhu, Lei; Zhang, Ming; Zhou, Guanqing Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 10, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201904234	journal	March 2020
Reduced Recombination and Capacitor-like Charge Buildup in an Organic Heterojunction Schwarz, Kyra N.; Geraghty, Paul B.; Mitchell, Valerie D. Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 142, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.9b12526	journal	January 2020
Nanoscale Domain Imaging of All-Polymer Organic Solar Cells by Photo-Induced Force Microscopy Gu, Kevin L.; Zhou, Yan; Morrison, William A. ACS Nano, Vol. 12, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.7b07865	journal	January 2018
Achieving Efficient Thick Film All-polymer Solar Cells Using a Green Solvent Additive Li, Zhen-Ye; Zhong, Wen-Kai; Ying, Lei Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, Vol. 38, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-020-2356-3	journal	November 2019
13.7% Efficiency Small‐Molecule Solar Cells Enabled by a Combination of Material and Morphology Optimization Yue, Qihui; Wu, Hao; Zhou, Zichun Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 51 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201904283	journal	November 2019
Determination of halogen levels in marine geological samples Li, Xiaoli; Wang, Yimin; Zhang, Qin Spectroscopy Letters, Vol. 49, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1080/00387010.2015.1109522	journal	October 2015
Efficient Polymer Solar Cells Based on Non-fullerene Acceptors with Potential Device Lifetime Approaching 10 Years Du, Xiaoyan; Heumueller, Thomas; Gruber, Wolfgang Joule, Vol. 3, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.09.001	journal	January 2019
Dithienopicenocarbazole-Based Acceptors for Efficient Organic Solar Cells with Optoelectronic Response Over 1000 nm and an Extremely Low Energy Loss Yao, Zhaoyang; Liao, Xunfan; Gao, Ke Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 140, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.7b13239	journal	February 2018
All-Small-Molecule Organic Solar Cells with an Ordered Liquid Crystalline Donor Chen, Haiyan; Hu, Dingqin; Yang, Qianguang Joule, Vol. 3, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.09.009	journal	December 2019
Side Chain Engineering on Medium Bandgap Copolymers to Suppress Triplet Formation for High-Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells Xue, Lingwei; Yang, Yankang; Xu, Jianqiu Advanced Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 40 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201703344	journal	August 2017
Evidencing Excellent Thermal‐ and Photostability for Single‐Component Organic Solar Cells with Inherently Built‐In Microstructure He, Yakun; Heumüller, Thomas; Lai, Wenbin Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 9, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201900409	journal	April 2019
A monothiophene unit incorporating both fluoro and ester substitution enabling high-performance donor polymers for non-fullerene solar cells with 16.4% efficiency Sun, Huiliang; Liu, Tao; Yu, Jianwei Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 12, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1039/C9EE01890E	journal	January 2019
Surface treatment by binary solvents induces the crystallization of a small molecular donor for enhanced photovoltaic performance Zhou, Weihua; Xie, Yuanpeng; Hu, Xiaotian Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, Vol. 18, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1039/C5CP05644F	journal	January 2016
Achieving Optimal Bulk Heterojunction in All-Polymer Solar Cells by Sequential Processing with Nonorthogonal Solvents Shan, Tong; Hong, Yuwen; Zhu, Lei ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 11, Issue 45 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b15476	journal	October 2019
Quantitative o perando visualization of the energy band depth profile in solar cells Chen, Qi; Mao, Lin; Li, Yaowen Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8745	journal	July 2015
A regioregular conjugated polymer for high performance thick-film organic solar cells without processing additive Zhong, Hongliang; Ye, Long; Chen, Jung-Yao Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 5, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1039/C7TA02391J	journal	January 2017
Barrierless Free Charge Generation in the High‐Performance PM6:Y6 Bulk Heterojunction Non‐Fullerene Solar Cell Perdigón‐Toro, Lorena; Zhang, Huotian; Markina, Anastasia Advanced Materials, Vol. 32, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201906763	journal	January 2020
Quantitative relations between interaction parameter, miscibility and function in organic solar cells Ye, Long; Hu, Huawei; Ghasemi, Masoud Nature Materials, Vol. 17, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-017-0005-1	journal	February 2018
Efficient organic solar cells processed from hydrocarbon solvents Zhao, Jingbo; Li, Yunke; Yang, Guofang Nature Energy, Vol. 1, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1038/nenergy.2015.27	journal	January 2016
Achieving Fast Charge Separation and Low Nonradiative Recombination Loss by Rational Fluorination for High‐Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells Sun, Chenkai; Pan, Fei; Chen, Shanshan Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 52 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201905480	journal	November 2019
Over 16% efficiency organic photovoltaic cells enabled by a chlorinated acceptor with increased open-circuit voltages Cui, Yong; Yao, Huifeng; Zhang, Jianqi Nature Communications, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10351-5	journal	June 2019
Universal Formation of Compositionally Graded Bulk Heterojunction for Efficiency Enhancement in Organic Photovoltaics Xiao, Zhengguo; Yuan, Yongbo; Yang, Bin Advanced Materials, Vol. 26, Issue 19 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201305196	journal	February 2014
A Layer-by-Layer Architecture for Printable Organic Solar Cells Overcoming the Scaling Lag of Module Efficiency Sun, Rui; Wu, Qiang; Guo, Jie Joule, Vol. 4, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.12.004	journal	February 2020
Influence of Regio- and Chemoselectivity on the Properties of Fluoro-Substituted Thienothiophene and Benzodithiophene Copolymers Zhong, Hongliang; Li, Chang-Zhi; Carpenter, Joshua Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 137, Issue 24 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5b04209	journal	June 2015
Low-Vapor-Pressure Solvent Additives Function as Polymer Swelling Agents in Bulk Heterojunction Organic Photovoltaics Fontana, Matthew T.; Kang, Hyeyeon; Yee, Patrick Y. The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 122, Issue 29 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b04192	journal	July 2018
Delineation of Thermodynamic and Kinetic Factors that Control Stability in Non-fullerene Organic Solar Cells Ghasemi, Masoud; Hu, Huawei; Peng, Zhengxing Joule, Vol. 3, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.03.020	journal	May 2019
Solution‐Processed Semitransparent Organic Photovoltaics: From Molecular Design to Device Performance Brus, Viktor V.; Lee, Jaewon; Luginbuhl, Ben Advanced Materials https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201900904	journal	May 2019
Design and application of volatilizable solid additives in non-fullerene organic solar cells Yu, Runnan; Yao, Huifeng; Hong, Ling Nature Communications, Vol. 9, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07017-z	journal	November 2018
Recent Advances in Morphology Optimization for Organic Photovoltaics Lee, Hansol; Park, Chaneui; Sin, Dong Hun Advanced Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 34 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201800453	journal	June 2018
Solvent additive-free ternary polymer solar cells with 16.27% efficiency An, Qiaoshi; Ma, Xiaoling; Gao, Jinhua Science Bulletin, Vol. 64, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2019.03.024	journal	April 2019
A General Approach for Lab‐to‐Manufacturing Translation on Flexible Organic Solar Cells Meng, Xiangchuan; Zhang, Lin; Xie, Yuanpeng Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 41 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201903649	journal	August 2019
New Phase for Organic Solar Cell Research: Emergence of Y-Series Electron Acceptors and Their Perspectives Li, Shuixing; Li, Chang-Zhi; Shi, Minmin ACS Energy Letters, Vol. 5, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsenergylett.0c00537	journal	April 2020
Simultaneous determination of chlorine and sulfur in geochemical reference samples by wavelength dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry Zhao, Wen-Zhi; Lu, Bing; Lv, Sheng-Nan New Journal of Chemistry, Vol. 44, Issue 26 https://doi.org/10.1039/D0NJ02042G	journal	January 2020
Processing Strategies for an Organic Photovoltaic Module with over 10% Efficiency Liao, Chuang-Yi; Chen, Yao; Lee, Chun-Chieh Joule, Vol. 4, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.11.006	journal	January 2020
Investigation of Charge Carrier Behavior in High Performance Ternary Blend Polymer Solar Cells Lee, Tack Ho; Uddin, Mohammad Afsar; Zhong, Chengmei Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 6, Issue 19 https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201600637	journal	July 2016
Additive-assisted supramolecular manipulation of polymer:fullerene blend phase morphologies and its influence on photophysical processes Buchaca-Domingo, E.; Ferguson, A. J.; Jamieson, F. C. Mater. Horiz., Vol. 1, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1039/C3MH00125C	journal	January 2014
Quenching to the Percolation Threshold in Organic Solar Cells Ye, Long; Li, Sunsun; Liu, Xiaoyu Joule, Vol. 3, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2018.11.006	journal	February 2019
Ternary solar cells with a mixed face-on and edge-on orientation enable an unprecedented efficiency of 12.1% Kumari, Tanya; Lee, Sang Myeon; Kang, So-Huei Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 10, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1039/C6EE02851A	journal	January 2017
Improving open-circuit voltage by a chlorinated polymer donor endows binary organic solar cells efficiencies over 17% Ma, Ruijie; Liu, Tao; Luo, Zhenghui Science China Chemistry, Vol. 63, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-019-9669-3	journal	February 2020
Achieving 14.11% efficiency of ternary polymer solar cells by simultaneously optimizing photon harvesting and exciton distribution Ma, Xiaoling; Luo, Mei; Gao, Wei Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 7, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1039/C9TA01497G	journal	January 2019
Efficient and Mechanically Robust Ultraflexible Organic Solar Cells Based on Mixed Acceptors Huang, Wenchao; Jiang, Zhi; Fukuda, Kenjiro Joule, Vol. 4, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.10.007	journal	January 2020
Charge Photogeneration for a Series of Thiazolo-Thiazole Donor Polymers Blended with the Fullerene Electron Acceptors PCBM and ICBA Shoaee, Safa; Subramaniyan, Selvam; Xin, Hao Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 26 https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201203148	journal	February 2013
Single-Junction Organic Solar Cell with over 15% Efficiency Using Fused-Ring Acceptor with Electron-Deficient Core Yuan, Jun; Zhang, Yunqiang; Zhou, Liuyang Joule, Vol. 3, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.01.004	journal	April 2019
Exciton diffusion in organic semiconductors Mikhnenko, Oleksandr V.; Blom, Paul W. M.; Nguyen, Thuc-Quyen Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 8, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1039/C5EE00925A	journal	January 2015
Remove the Residual Additives toward Enhanced Efficiency with Higher Reproducibility in Polymer Solar Cells Ye, Long; Jing, Yan; Guo, Xia The Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 117, Issue 29 https://doi.org/10.1021/jp404395q	journal	July 2013
Engineering the vertical concentration distribution within the polymer:fullerene blends for high performance inverted polymer solar cells Wang, Yaping; Zhu, Honglu; Shi, Zhenzhen Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 5, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1039/C6TA10678A	journal	January 2017
Competition between recombination and extraction of free charges determines the fill factor of organic solar cells Bartesaghi, Davide; Pérez, Irene del Carmen; Kniepert, Juliane Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8083	journal	May 2015
Organic Photovoltaics with Multiple Donor–Acceptor Pairs Lee, Jungho; Lee, Sang Myeon; Chen, Shanshan Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 20 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201804762	journal	November 2018
High-efficiency polymer solar cells with a cost-effective quinoxaline polymer through nanoscale morphology control induced by practical processing additives Kim, Yiho; Yeom, Hye Rim; Kim, Jin Young Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 6, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1039/c3ee00110e	journal	January 2013
Morphology Control in Organic Solar Cells Zhao, Fuwen; Wang, Chunru; Zhan, Xiaowei Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 8, Issue 28 https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201703147	journal	March 2018
Ternary Polymer Solar Cells Facilitating Improved Efficiency and Stability Dong, Yingying; Zou, Yan; Yuan, Jianyu Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 52 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201904601	journal	November 2019
Reducing the efficiency–stability–cost gap of organic photovoltaics with highly efficient and stable small molecule acceptor ternary solar cells Baran, Derya; Ashraf, Raja Shahid; Hanifi, David A. Nature Materials, Vol. 16, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4797	journal	November 2016
Understanding Solvent Manipulation of Morphology in Bulk-Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells Chen, Yuxia; Zhan, Chuanlang; Yao, Jiannian Chemistry - An Asian Journal, Vol. 11, Issue 19 https://doi.org/10.1002/asia.201600374	journal	June 2016
Over 17% efficiency ternary organic solar cells enabled by two non-fullerene acceptors working in an alloy-like model Zhan, Lingling; Li, Shuixing; Lau, Tsz-Ki Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 13, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1039/C9EE03710A	journal	January 2020
Highly Efficient All‐Small‐Molecule Organic Solar Cells with Appropriate Active Layer Morphology by Side Chain Engineering of Donor Molecules and Thermal Annealing Qiu, Beibei; Chen, Zeng; Qin, Shucheng Advanced Materials, Vol. 32, Issue 21 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201908373	journal	April 2020
Charge carrier recombination in organic solar cells Proctor, Christopher M.; Kuik, Martijn; Nguyen, Thuc-Quyen Progress in Polymer Science, Vol. 38, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.progpolymsci.2013.08.008	journal	December 2013
Large‐Area Organic Solar Cells: Material Requirements, Modular Designs, and Printing Methods Wang, Guodong; Adil, Muhammad Abdullah; Zhang, Jianqi Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 45 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201805089	journal	December 2018

Similar Records

In Situ Analysis of Solvent and Additive Effects on Film Morphology Evolution in Spin-Cast Small-Molecule and Polymer Photovoltaic Materials

Journal Article · Fri May 25 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Advanced Energy Materials · OSTI ID:1828546

Manley, Eric F.; Strzalka, Joseph; Fauvell, Thomas J.; +2 more

Importance of Nucleation during Morphology Evolution of the Blade-Cast PffBT4T-2OD-Based Organic Solar Cells

Journal Article · Tue Aug 21 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Macromolecules · OSTI ID:1828546

Bi, Zhaozhao; Naveed, Hafiz Bilal; Mao, Yimin; +2 more

Optimized Fibril Network Morphology by Precise Side‐Chain Engineering to Achieve High‐Performance Bulk‐Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells

Journal Article · Fri May 18 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Advanced Materials · OSTI ID:1828546

Liu, Tao; Huo, Lijun; Chandrabose, Sreelakshmi; +12 more

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY
photovoltaics
solar cells

Title: Universal and versatile morphology engineering via hot fluorous solvent soaking for organic bulk heterojunction

Citation Formats

References (66)

Similar Records

Related Subjects