Title: From binary to quaternary: high-tolerance of multi-acceptors enables development of efficient polymer solar cells [From binary to quaternary: high-tolerance of multi-acceptors enables efficient polymer solar cells]

Abstract

For optimum coverage of the optical spectrum and further enhancement of the carrier transport, ternary and even more multi-composition strategies have been universally explored. As PC₇₁BM and PC₆₁BM are both compatible with PTB7-Th and IEICO-4F takes advantage of optical absorption in the near-infrared region, we combined PTB7-Th:IEICO-4F:PC₇₁BM:PC₆₁BM quaternary compositions to fabricate high-efficiency polymer solar cells (PSCs) with good tolerance ratios of the fullerene acceptors. After blending the fullerene alloys PC₇₁BM and PC₆₁BM into the host PTB7-Th:IEICO-4F system, the optical response in the whole wavelength regime has been strengthened with significantly enhanced electron mobility. Concomitantly, the short-circuit current density (J_sc) surged from 22.07 to 24.37 mA cm^–2 and the fill factor (FF) ascended from 58.24% to 69.30%, which finally resulted in a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.52%, which is much higher than that of the binary control device (9.67%). This significant improvement is attributed to the fine-tuning of the morphology of the photo-active layer and feasible carrier transport. Interestingly, this finding implicates the synergistic effect of PC₇₁BM and PC₆₁BM to successfully enhancing the carrier transport. In addition, it demonstrates a broad tolerance of the acceptor proportions, resulting in higher PCE values for the quaternary devices as compared to themore » ternary devices. Lastly, generality for other systems evidences and provides guidelines for quaternary strategy utilization. Furthermore, the simplicity of quaternary strategies could be greatly beneficial to not yet elaborate commercial processes.« less

Authors:

Liu, Longzhu ^[1]; Chen, Hui ^[2]; Chen, Wei  ^[3];

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• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0001-8906-4278"

He, Feng  ^[2]

• Search DOE PAGES for author "He, Feng"
• Search DOE PAGES for ORCID "0000-0002-8596-1366"

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Southern Univ. of Science and Technology, Shenzhen (People's Republic of China); Harbin Inst. of Technology, Harbin (People's Republic of China)
2. Southern Univ. of Science and Technology, Shenzhen (People's Republic of China)
3. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States); The Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)

Publication Date:

Thu Mar 14 00:00:00 EDT 2019

Research Org.:

Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:

National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division; USDOE

OSTI Identifier:

1508131

Alternate Identifier(s):

OSTI ID: 1499823

Grant/Contract Number:  

AC02-06CH11357

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Journal of Materials Chemistry. A

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 7; Journal Issue: 13; Journal ID: ISSN 2050-7488

Publisher:

Royal Society of Chemistry

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

14 SOLAR ENERGY; polymer solar cells; quaternary; high tolerance; carrier transport