DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Sequential Blade‐Coated Acceptor and Donor Enables Simultaneous Enhancement of Efficiency, Stability, and Mechanical Properties for Organic Solar Cells

Abstract

Abstract As a predominant fabrication method of organic solar cells (OSCs), casting of a bulk heterojunction (BHJ) structure presents overwhelming advantages for achieving higher power conversion efficiency (PCE). However, long‐term stability and mechanical strength are significantly crucial to realize large‐area and flexible devices. Here, controlling blend film morphology is considered as an effective way toward co‐optimizing device performance, stability, and mechanical properties. A PCE of 12.27% for a P‐i‐N‐structured OSC processed by sequential blade casting (SBC) is reported. The device not only outperforms the as‐cast BHJ devices (11.01%), but also shows impressive stability and mechanical properties. The authors corroborate such enhancements with improved vertical phase separation and purer phases toward more efficient transport and collection of charges. Moreover, adaptation of SBC strategy here will result in thermodynamically favorable nanostructures toward more stable film morphology, and thus improving the stability and mechanical properties of the devices. Such co‐optimization of OSCs will pave ways toward realizing the highly efficient, large‐area, flexible devices for future endeavors.

Authors:
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an 710049 Shaanxi China
Publication Date:
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE
OSTI Identifier:
1582480
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: 10 Journal Issue: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 1614-6832
Publisher:
Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
Country of Publication:
Germany
Language:
English

Citation Formats

Wang, Yilin, Zhu, Qinglian, Naveed, Hafiz Bilal, Zhao, Heng, Zhou, Ke, and Ma, Wei. Sequential Blade‐Coated Acceptor and Donor Enables Simultaneous Enhancement of Efficiency, Stability, and Mechanical Properties for Organic Solar Cells. Germany: N. p., 2020. Web. doi:10.1002/aenm.201903609.
Wang, Yilin, Zhu, Qinglian, Naveed, Hafiz Bilal, Zhao, Heng, Zhou, Ke, & Ma, Wei. Sequential Blade‐Coated Acceptor and Donor Enables Simultaneous Enhancement of Efficiency, Stability, and Mechanical Properties for Organic Solar Cells. Germany. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201903609
Wang, Yilin, Zhu, Qinglian, Naveed, Hafiz Bilal, Zhao, Heng, Zhou, Ke, and Ma, Wei. Mon . "Sequential Blade‐Coated Acceptor and Donor Enables Simultaneous Enhancement of Efficiency, Stability, and Mechanical Properties for Organic Solar Cells". Germany. https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201903609.
@article{osti_1582480,
title = {Sequential Blade‐Coated Acceptor and Donor Enables Simultaneous Enhancement of Efficiency, Stability, and Mechanical Properties for Organic Solar Cells},
author = {Wang, Yilin and Zhu, Qinglian and Naveed, Hafiz Bilal and Zhao, Heng and Zhou, Ke and Ma, Wei},
abstractNote = {Abstract As a predominant fabrication method of organic solar cells (OSCs), casting of a bulk heterojunction (BHJ) structure presents overwhelming advantages for achieving higher power conversion efficiency (PCE). However, long‐term stability and mechanical strength are significantly crucial to realize large‐area and flexible devices. Here, controlling blend film morphology is considered as an effective way toward co‐optimizing device performance, stability, and mechanical properties. A PCE of 12.27% for a P‐i‐N‐structured OSC processed by sequential blade casting (SBC) is reported. The device not only outperforms the as‐cast BHJ devices (11.01%), but also shows impressive stability and mechanical properties. The authors corroborate such enhancements with improved vertical phase separation and purer phases toward more efficient transport and collection of charges. Moreover, adaptation of SBC strategy here will result in thermodynamically favorable nanostructures toward more stable film morphology, and thus improving the stability and mechanical properties of the devices. Such co‐optimization of OSCs will pave ways toward realizing the highly efficient, large‐area, flexible devices for future endeavors.},
doi = {10.1002/aenm.201903609},
journal = {Advanced Energy Materials},
number = 7,
volume = 10,
place = {Germany},
year = {Mon Jan 13 00:00:00 EST 2020},
month = {Mon Jan 13 00:00:00 EST 2020}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201903609

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 55 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

Hierarchical Morphology Stability under Multiple Stresses in Organic Solar Cells
journal, January 2019


Cold Crystallization Temperature Correlated Phase Separation, Performance, and Stability of Polymer Solar Cells
journal, November 2019


High Performance All-Polymer Solar Cells by Synergistic Effects of Fine-Tuned Crystallinity and Solvent Annealing
journal, August 2016

  • Li, Zhaojun; Xu, Xiaofeng; Zhang, Wei
  • Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 138, Issue 34
  • DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b04822

A Wide-Bandgap Donor Polymer for Highly Efficient Non-fullerene Organic Solar Cells with a Small Voltage Loss
journal, April 2017

  • Chen, Shangshang; Liu, Yuhang; Zhang, Lin
  • Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 139, Issue 18
  • DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b01606

Compact Roll-to-Roll Coater for in Situ X-ray Diffraction Characterization of Organic Electronics Printing
journal, January 2016

  • Gu, Xiaodan; Reinspach, Julia; Worfolk, Brian J.
  • ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 8, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b09174

Flexible, highly efficient all-polymer solar cells
journal, October 2015

  • Kim, Taesu; Kim, Jae-Han; Kang, Tae Eui
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 6, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9547

16.67% Rigid and 14.06% Flexible Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Ternary Heterojunction Strategy
journal, August 2019


Mechanical Properties of Conjugated Polymers and Polymer-Fullerene Composites as a Function of Molecular Structure
journal, October 2013

  • Savagatrup, Suchol; Makaram, Aditya S.; Burke, Daniel J.
  • Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 24, Issue 8
  • DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201302646

Side-Chain Engineering for Enhancing the Thermal Stability of Polymer Solar Cells
journal, October 2015


Achieving over 16% efficiency for single-junction organic solar cells
journal, March 2019


An Efficient, “Burn in” Free Organic Solar Cell Employing a Nonfullerene Electron Acceptor
journal, June 2017

  • Cha, Hyojung; Wu, Jiaying; Wadsworth, Andrew
  • Advanced Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 33
  • DOI: 10.1002/adma.201701156

A Printable Organic Cathode Interlayer Enables over 13% Efficiency for 1-cm2 Organic Solar Cells
journal, January 2019


Recent Advances, Design Guidelines, and Prospects of All-Polymer Solar Cells
journal, June 2019


Efficient Polymer Solar Cells Based on Non-fullerene Acceptors with Potential Device Lifetime Approaching 10 Years
journal, January 2019


A SAXS/WAXS/GISAXS Beamline with Multilayer Monochromator
journal, October 2010


Morphology changes upon scaling a high-efficiency, solution-processed solar cell
journal, January 2016

  • Ro, Hyun Wook; Downing, Jonathan M.; Engmann, Sebastian
  • Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 9, Issue 9
  • DOI: 10.1039/C6EE01623E

Correlating Stiffness, Ductility, and Morphology of Polymer:Fullerene Films for Solar Cell Applications
journal, November 2012

  • Awartani, Omar; Lemanski, Bethany I.; Ro, Hyun Wook
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201200595

Conjugated-Polymer Blends for Organic Photovoltaics: Rational Control of Vertical Stratification for High Performance
journal, February 2017


Fine Optimization of Morphology Evolution Kinetics with Binary Additives for Efficient Non‐Fullerene Organic Solar Cells
journal, January 2019


Recent Advances to Understand Morphology Stability of Organic Photovoltaics
journal, October 2016


Control of Miscibility and Aggregation Via the Material Design and Coating Process for High-Performance Polymer Blend Solar Cells
journal, October 2013

  • Zhou, Erjun; Cong, Junzi; Hashimoto, Kazuhito
  • Advanced Materials, Vol. 25, Issue 48
  • DOI: 10.1002/adma.201303170

Quantitative relations between interaction parameter, miscibility and function in organic solar cells
journal, February 2018


Universal Formation of Compositionally Graded Bulk Heterojunction for Efficiency Enhancement in Organic Photovoltaics
journal, February 2014


Predicting Morphologies of Solution Processed Polymer:Fullerene Blends
journal, July 2013

  • Kouijzer, Sandra; Michels, Jasper J.; van den Berg, Mauricio
  • Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 135, Issue 32
  • DOI: 10.1021/ja405493j

Tuning Local Molecular Orientation-Composition Correlations in Binary Organic Thin Films by Solution Shearing
journal, April 2015

  • Ma, Wei; Reinspach, Julia; Zhou, Yan
  • Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 25, Issue 21
  • DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201500468

Design and application of volatilizable solid additives in non-fullerene organic solar cells
journal, November 2018


Vertical Stratification Engineering for Organic Bulk-Heterojunction Devices
journal, April 2018


Molecular Lock: A Versatile Key to Enhance Efficiency and Stability of Organic Solar Cells
journal, May 2016


Solvent additive-free ternary polymer solar cells with 16.27% efficiency
journal, April 2019


Determining the Role of Polymer Molecular Weight for High-Performance All-Polymer Solar Cells: Its Effect on Polymer Aggregation and Phase Separation
journal, February 2015

  • Kang, Hyunbum; Uddin, Mohammad Afsar; Lee, Changyeon
  • Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 137, Issue 6
  • DOI: 10.1021/ja5123182

Aggregation and morphology control enables multiple cases of high-efficiency polymer solar cells
journal, November 2014

  • Liu, Yuhang; Zhao, Jingbo; Li, Zhengke
  • Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6293

Scherrer grain-size analysis adapted to grazing-incidence scattering with area detectors. Erratum
journal, January 2013


16.7%-efficiency ternary blended organic photovoltaic cells with PCBM as the acceptor additive to increase the open-circuit voltage and phase purity
journal, January 2019

  • Pan, Ming-Ao; Lau, Tsz-Ki; Tang, Yabing
  • Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 7, Issue 36
  • DOI: 10.1039/C9TA06929A

Highly efficient charge-carrier generation and collection in polymer/polymer blend solar cells with a power conversion efficiency of 5.7%
journal, January 2014

  • Mori, Daisuke; Benten, Hiroaki; Okada, Izumi
  • Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 7, Issue 9
  • DOI: 10.1039/C4EE01326C

Relating Chemical Structure to Device Performance via Morphology Control in Diketopyrrolopyrrole-Based Low Band Gap Polymers
journal, December 2013

  • Liu, Feng; Wang, Cheng; Baral, Jayanta K.
  • Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 135, Issue 51
  • DOI: 10.1021/ja408923y

Mechanical Properties of Polymer–Fullerene Bulk Heterojunction Films: Role of Nanomorphology of Composite Films
journal, April 2017


Impact of the Crystallite Orientation Distribution on Exciton Transport in Donor–Acceptor Conjugated Polymers
journal, August 2015

  • Ayzner, Alexander L.; Mei, Jianguo; Appleton, Anthony
  • ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 7, Issue 51
  • DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b02968

Single-Junction Organic Solar Cell with over 15% Efficiency Using Fused-Ring Acceptor with Electron-Deficient Core
journal, April 2019


Influence of blend microstructure on bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaic performance
journal, January 2011

  • Brabec, Christoph J.; Heeney, Martin; McCulloch, Iain
  • Chem. Soc. Rev., Vol. 40, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1039/C0CS00045K

Controlling Molecular Orientation of Naphthalenediimide-Based Polymer Acceptors for High Performance All-Polymer Solar Cells
journal, June 2016

  • Jung, Jihye; Lee, Wonho; Lee, Changyeon
  • Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 6, Issue 15
  • DOI: 10.1002/aenm.201600504

Alloy Acceptor: Superior Alternative to PCBM toward Efficient and Stable Organic Solar Cells
journal, June 2016


Influence of Acceptor Type and Polymer Molecular Weight on the Mechanical Properties of Polymer Solar Cells
journal, September 2019


A Wide Band Gap Polymer with a Deep Highest Occupied Molecular Orbital Level Enables 14.2% Efficiency in Polymer Solar Cells
journal, May 2018

  • Li, Sunsun; Ye, Long; Zhao, Wenchao
  • Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 140, Issue 23
  • DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b02695

Direct Uniaxial Alignment of a Donor–Acceptor Semiconducting Polymer Using Single-Step Solution Shearing
journal, March 2016

  • Shaw, Leo; Hayoz, Pascal; Diao, Ying
  • ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 8, Issue 14
  • DOI: 10.1021/acsami.6b01607

Influence of the Crystalline Nature of Small Donors Molecules on the Efficiency and Stability of Organic Photovoltaic Devices
journal, February 2018


Scherrer grain-size analysis adapted to grazing-incidence scattering with area detectors
journal, October 2009


Stretchable Conductive Polymers and Composites Based on PEDOT and PEDOT:PSS
journal, January 2019