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Title: High‐Efficiency Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells: Critical Factors that Affect Complex Multi‐Length Scale Morphology and Device Performance

Abstract

Organic solar cells (OSCs) made of donor/acceptor bulk‐heterojunction active layers have been of widespread interest in converting sunlight to electricity. Characterizing of the complex morphology at multiple length scales of polymer:nonfullerene small molecular acceptor (SMA) systems remains largely unexplored. Through detailed characterizations (hard/soft X‐ray scattering) of the record‐efficiency polymer:SMA system with a close analog, quantitative morphological parameters are related to the device performance parameters and fundamental morphology–performance relationships that explain why additive use and thermal annealing are needed for optimized performance are established. A linear correlation between the average purity variations at small length scale (≈10 nm) and photovoltaic device characteristics across all processing protocols is observed in ≈12%‐efficiency polymer:SMA systems. In addition, molecular interactions as reflected by the estimated Flory–Huggins interaction parameters are used to provide context of the room temperature morphology results. Comparison with results from annealed devices suggests that the two SMA systems compared show upper and lower critical solution temperature behavior, respectively. The in‐depth understanding of the complex multilength scale nonfullerene OSC morphology may guide the device optimization and new materials development and indicates that thermodynamic properties of materials systems should be studied in more detail to aid in designing optimized protocols efficiently.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [1]
  1. Department of Physics and Organic and Carbon Electronics Lab (ORaCEL) North Carolina State University Raleigh NC 27695 USA
  2. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100190 China
Publication Date:
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1392183
Grant/Contract Number:  
DE‐AC02‐05CH11231
Resource Type:
Publisher's Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Advanced Energy Materials
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Advanced Energy Materials Journal Volume: 7 Journal Issue: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 1614-6832
Publisher:
Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
Country of Publication:
Germany
Language:
English

Citation Formats

Ye, Long, Zhao, Wenchao, Li, Sunsun, Mukherjee, Subhrangsu, Carpenter, Joshua H., Awartani, Omar, Jiao, Xuechen, Hou, Jianhui, and Ade, Harald. High‐Efficiency Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells: Critical Factors that Affect Complex Multi‐Length Scale Morphology and Device Performance. Germany: N. p., 2016. Web. doi:10.1002/aenm.201602000.
Ye, Long, Zhao, Wenchao, Li, Sunsun, Mukherjee, Subhrangsu, Carpenter, Joshua H., Awartani, Omar, Jiao, Xuechen, Hou, Jianhui, & Ade, Harald. High‐Efficiency Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells: Critical Factors that Affect Complex Multi‐Length Scale Morphology and Device Performance. Germany. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201602000
Ye, Long, Zhao, Wenchao, Li, Sunsun, Mukherjee, Subhrangsu, Carpenter, Joshua H., Awartani, Omar, Jiao, Xuechen, Hou, Jianhui, and Ade, Harald. Mon . "High‐Efficiency Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells: Critical Factors that Affect Complex Multi‐Length Scale Morphology and Device Performance". Germany. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201602000.
@article{osti_1392183,
title = {High‐Efficiency Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells: Critical Factors that Affect Complex Multi‐Length Scale Morphology and Device Performance},
author = {Ye, Long and Zhao, Wenchao and Li, Sunsun and Mukherjee, Subhrangsu and Carpenter, Joshua H. and Awartani, Omar and Jiao, Xuechen and Hou, Jianhui and Ade, Harald},
abstractNote = {Organic solar cells (OSCs) made of donor/acceptor bulk‐heterojunction active layers have been of widespread interest in converting sunlight to electricity. Characterizing of the complex morphology at multiple length scales of polymer:nonfullerene small molecular acceptor (SMA) systems remains largely unexplored. Through detailed characterizations (hard/soft X‐ray scattering) of the record‐efficiency polymer:SMA system with a close analog, quantitative morphological parameters are related to the device performance parameters and fundamental morphology–performance relationships that explain why additive use and thermal annealing are needed for optimized performance are established. A linear correlation between the average purity variations at small length scale (≈10 nm) and photovoltaic device characteristics across all processing protocols is observed in ≈12%‐efficiency polymer:SMA systems. In addition, molecular interactions as reflected by the estimated Flory–Huggins interaction parameters are used to provide context of the room temperature morphology results. Comparison with results from annealed devices suggests that the two SMA systems compared show upper and lower critical solution temperature behavior, respectively. The in‐depth understanding of the complex multilength scale nonfullerene OSC morphology may guide the device optimization and new materials development and indicates that thermodynamic properties of materials systems should be studied in more detail to aid in designing optimized protocols efficiently.},
doi = {10.1002/aenm.201602000},
journal = {Advanced Energy Materials},
number = 7,
volume = 7,
place = {Germany},
year = {Mon Dec 12 00:00:00 EST 2016},
month = {Mon Dec 12 00:00:00 EST 2016}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201602000

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Cited by: 207 works
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