High Performance Ternary Organic Solar Cells due to Favored Interfacial Connection by a Non-Fullerene Electron Acceptor with Cross-Like Molecular Geometry

Journal Article · 08 May 2018 · Journal of Physical Chemistry. C

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.8b03013 · OSTI ID:1461470

Sharapov, Valerii  ^[1]; Wu, Qinghe  ^[2]; Neshchadin, Andriy ^[1]; Zhao, Donglin ^[1]; Cai, Zhengxu  ^[1]; Chen, Wei  ^[3]; Yu, Luping ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Chemistry and The James Franck Inst.
2. Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Chemistry and The James Franck Inst.; Shantou Univ., Guangdong (China). Dept. of Chemistry and Key Lab. for Preparation and Application of Ordered Structural Materials of Guangdong Province
3. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division; Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Inst. for Molecular Engineering

The non-fullerene electron acceptor, TPB, exhibits a unique cross-like molecular geometry which helps it to stay preferentially at the interfaces between PTB7-Th and PC₇₁BM, when it is used as the third component in ternary OPV cells. The four PDI units connected to TPB's core provide multiple contact points between PTB7-Th and PC₇₁BM phases, thus facilitating interfacial charge extraction and improving the overall PCE to 10.6% from 9.8% after 10% TPB was added as the third component. Here, this article describes detailed experimental results and a model to explain these observations.

• Research Organization: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Center for Light Energy Activated Redox Processes (LEAP); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC02-06CH11357; SC0001059
• OSTI ID: 1461470
• Journal Information: Journal of Physical Chemistry. C, Vol. 122, Issue 21; ISSN 1932-7447
• Publisher: American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English