High Sensitivity of Non–Fullerene Organic Solar Cells Morphology and Performance to a Processing Additive

Alqahtani, Obaid; Lv, Jie; Xu, Tongle; Murcia, Victor; Ferron, Thomas; McAfee, Terry; Grabner, Devin; Duan, Tainan; Collins, Brian A.

doi:10.1002/smll.202202411

High Sensitivity of Non–Fullerene Organic Solar Cells Morphology and Performance to a Processing Additive

Journal Article · Thu May 12 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Small

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202202411· OSTI ID:2222908

^[1]; Lv, Jie ^[2]; Xu, Tongle ^[2]; Murcia, Victor ^[3]; Ferron, Thomas ^[3]; McAfee, Terry ^[4]; Grabner, Devin ^[3]; Duan, Tainan ^[2]; ^[3]

Washington State University, Pullman, WA (United States); Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Alkharj (Saudi Arabia); Washington State University
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing (China)
Washington State University, Pullman, WA (United States)
Washington State University, Pullman, WA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Although solvent additives are used to optimize device performance in many novel non-fullerene acceptor (NFA) organic solar cells (OSCs), the effect of processing additives on OSC structures and functionalities can be difficult to predict. Here, two polymer-NFA OSCs with highly sensitive device performance and morphology to the most prevalent solvent additive chloronaphthalene (CN) are presented. Devices with 1% CN additive are found to nearly double device efficiencies to 10%. However, additive concentrations even slightly above optimum significantly hinder device performance due to formation of undesirable morphologies. A comprehensive analysis of device nanostructure shows that CN is critical to increasing crystallinity and optimizing phase separation up to the optimal concentration for suppressing charge recombination and maximizing performance. Here, domain purity and crystallinity are highly correlated with photocurrent and fill factors. However, this effect is in competition with uncontrolled crystallization of NFAs that occur at CN concentrations slightly above optimal. This study highlights how slight variations of solvent additives can impart detrimental effects to morphology and device performance of NFA OSCs. Furthermore, successful scale-up processing of NFA-based OSCs will require extreme formulation control, a tuned NFA structure that resists runaway crystallization, or alternative methods such as additive-free fabrication.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Washington State University, Pullman, WA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division (MSE); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities (SUF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; SC0017923

OSTI ID:: 2222908

Journal Information:: Small, Journal Name: Small Journal Issue: 23 Vol. 18; ISSN 1613-6810

Publisher:: WileyCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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