Enhanced hindrance from phenyl outer side chains on nonfullerene acceptor enables unprecedented simultaneous enhancement in organic solar cell performances with 16.7% efficiency
Abstract
Inner side-chain engineering on Y6 has been a proven successful in improving short-circuit current density (JSC) through fine-tuning aggregated structures of acceptors. However, it fails in tuning the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level (LUMO) and open-circuit voltage (VOC). In this paper, we turn to focus on engineering the outer side chains on the flanking thienothiophene units with 4-hexylphenyl (PhC6) and 6-phenylhexyl (C6Ph) chains. Use of PhC6 enhances the steric effect between the attached phenyl and the ending group, which in combination with the additional conjugation effect provided by the linking phenyl leads to upshifted energy levels and increased VOC as a result. Again, substitution with the bulkier PhC6 unprecedentedly improves film-morphology with reduced paracrystalline disorder and long period and increased root-mean-square composition variations as well, leading to increased electron and hole mobilities and suppressed monomolecular recombination with JSC and fill-factor (FF) simultaneously enhanced. The PM6:BTP-PhC6-based devices yield a higher efficiency value of 16.7% than the PM6:BTP-C6Ph-based one (15.5%). Furthermore, this study shows a conceptual advance in materials design towards reducing the conflict between VOC and JSC in binary blended organic solar cells, which can be achieved by introducing bulkier chains to twist the backbone and simultaneously enhance the packing order.
- Authors:
-
[3];
[5];
[7]
- Chang'an Univ., Xi'an (China); Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology, Hong Kong (China)
- Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology, Hong Kong (China)
- North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States)
- Chang'an Univ., Xi'an (China); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)
- Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology, Hong Kong (China); Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology-Shenzhen Research Inst., Shenzhen (China)
- Chang'an Univ., Xi'an (China)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China); Inner Mongolia Normal Univ., Huhehot (China)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology, Hong Kong (China)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1635335
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1635438
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nano Energy
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 76; Journal Issue: C; Journal ID: ISSN 2211-2855
- Publisher:
- Elsevier
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 14 SOLAR ENERGY; fullerene-free; side-chain engineering; organic solar cell; isomerization; aggregated structure
Citation Formats
Chai, Gaoda, Chang, Yuan, Peng, Zhengxing, Jia, Yanyan, Zou, Xinhui, Yu, Dian, Yu, Han, Chen, Yuzhong, Chow, Philip C. Y., Wong, Kam Sing, Zhang, Jianquan, Ade, Harald, Yang, Liwei, and Zhan, Chuanlang. Enhanced hindrance from phenyl outer side chains on nonfullerene acceptor enables unprecedented simultaneous enhancement in organic solar cell performances with 16.7% efficiency. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.105087.
Chai, Gaoda, Chang, Yuan, Peng, Zhengxing, Jia, Yanyan, Zou, Xinhui, Yu, Dian, Yu, Han, Chen, Yuzhong, Chow, Philip C. Y., Wong, Kam Sing, Zhang, Jianquan, Ade, Harald, Yang, Liwei, & Zhan, Chuanlang. Enhanced hindrance from phenyl outer side chains on nonfullerene acceptor enables unprecedented simultaneous enhancement in organic solar cell performances with 16.7% efficiency. United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.105087
Chai, Gaoda, Chang, Yuan, Peng, Zhengxing, Jia, Yanyan, Zou, Xinhui, Yu, Dian, Yu, Han, Chen, Yuzhong, Chow, Philip C. Y., Wong, Kam Sing, Zhang, Jianquan, Ade, Harald, Yang, Liwei, and Zhan, Chuanlang. Sun .
"Enhanced hindrance from phenyl outer side chains on nonfullerene acceptor enables unprecedented simultaneous enhancement in organic solar cell performances with 16.7% efficiency". United States. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.105087. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1635335.
@article{osti_1635335,
title = {Enhanced hindrance from phenyl outer side chains on nonfullerene acceptor enables unprecedented simultaneous enhancement in organic solar cell performances with 16.7% efficiency},
author = {Chai, Gaoda and Chang, Yuan and Peng, Zhengxing and Jia, Yanyan and Zou, Xinhui and Yu, Dian and Yu, Han and Chen, Yuzhong and Chow, Philip C. Y. and Wong, Kam Sing and Zhang, Jianquan and Ade, Harald and Yang, Liwei and Zhan, Chuanlang},
abstractNote = {Inner side-chain engineering on Y6 has been a proven successful in improving short-circuit current density (JSC) through fine-tuning aggregated structures of acceptors. However, it fails in tuning the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level (LUMO) and open-circuit voltage (VOC). In this paper, we turn to focus on engineering the outer side chains on the flanking thienothiophene units with 4-hexylphenyl (PhC6) and 6-phenylhexyl (C6Ph) chains. Use of PhC6 enhances the steric effect between the attached phenyl and the ending group, which in combination with the additional conjugation effect provided by the linking phenyl leads to upshifted energy levels and increased VOC as a result. Again, substitution with the bulkier PhC6 unprecedentedly improves film-morphology with reduced paracrystalline disorder and long period and increased root-mean-square composition variations as well, leading to increased electron and hole mobilities and suppressed monomolecular recombination with JSC and fill-factor (FF) simultaneously enhanced. The PM6:BTP-PhC6-based devices yield a higher efficiency value of 16.7% than the PM6:BTP-C6Ph-based one (15.5%). Furthermore, this study shows a conceptual advance in materials design towards reducing the conflict between VOC and JSC in binary blended organic solar cells, which can be achieved by introducing bulkier chains to twist the backbone and simultaneously enhance the packing order.},
doi = {10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.105087},
journal = {Nano Energy},
number = C,
volume = 76,
place = {United States},
year = {2020},
month = {6}
}
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