High performance tandem organic solar cells via a strongly infrared-absorbing narrow bandgap acceptor
Abstract
Tandem organic solar cells are based on the device structure monolithically connecting two solar cells to broaden overall absorption spectrum and utilize the photon energy more efficiently. Herein, we demonstrate a simple strategy of inserting a double bond between the central core and end groups of the small molecule acceptor Y6 to extend its conjugation length and absorption range. As a result, a new narrow bandgap acceptor BTPV-4F was synthesized with an optical bandgap of 1.21 eV. The single-junction devices based on BTPV-4F as acceptor achieved a power conversion efficiency of over 13.4% with a high short-circuit current density of 28.9 mA cm-2. With adopting BTPV-4F as the rear cell acceptor material, the resulting tandem devices reached a high power conversion efficiency of over 16.4% with good photostability. The results indicate that BTPV-4F is an efficient infrared-absorbing narrow bandgap acceptor and has great potential to be applied into tandem organic solar cells.
- Authors:
-
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Inst. of Chemistry. CAS Key Lab. of Organic Solids. Beijing National Lab. for Molecular Sciences; Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). School of Chemical Science
- North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States). Dept. of Physics. Organic and Carbon Electronics Laboratories (ORaCEL)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Inst. of Chemistry. CAS Key Lab. of Organic Solids. Beijing National Lab. for Molecular Sciences
- Friedrich-Alexander Univ. Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering. Inst. of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET); Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT), Erlangen (Germany)
- Friedrich-Alexander Univ. Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering. Inst. of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET); Helmholtz-Inst. Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI ERN), Erlangen (Germany)
- North Carolina State Univ., Raleigh, NC (United States). Dept. of Physics. Organic and Carbon Electronics Laboratories (ORaCEL)
- Friedrich-Alexander Univ. Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany). Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering. Inst. of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET); Helmholtz-Inst. Erlangen-Nürnberg for Renewable Energy (HI ERN), Erlangen (Germany)
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Inst. of Chemistry. CAS Key Lab. of Organic Solids. Beijing National Lab. for Molecular Sciences; Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). School of Chemical Science; Soochow Univ., Taipai (Taiwan). College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. Lab. of Advanced Optoelectronic Materials
- Publication Date:
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities Division; National Key Research and Development Program of China; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); Guangdong Major Project of Basic and Applied Basic Research
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1817063
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-05CH11231; 2019YFA0705900; 51820105003; 21734008; 61904181; 2019B030302007
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 12; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; 36 MATERIALS SCIENCE; 42 ENGINEERING; optical materials; solar cells
Citation Formats
Jia, Zhenrong, Qin, Shucheng, Meng, Lei, Ma, Qing, Angunawela, Indunil, Zhang, Jinyuan, Li, Xiaojun, He, Yakun, Lai, Wenbin, Li, Ning, Ade, Harald, Brabec, Christoph J., and Li, Yongfang. High performance tandem organic solar cells via a strongly infrared-absorbing narrow bandgap acceptor. United States: N. p., 2021.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-20431-6.
Jia, Zhenrong, Qin, Shucheng, Meng, Lei, Ma, Qing, Angunawela, Indunil, Zhang, Jinyuan, Li, Xiaojun, He, Yakun, Lai, Wenbin, Li, Ning, Ade, Harald, Brabec, Christoph J., & Li, Yongfang. High performance tandem organic solar cells via a strongly infrared-absorbing narrow bandgap acceptor. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20431-6
Jia, Zhenrong, Qin, Shucheng, Meng, Lei, Ma, Qing, Angunawela, Indunil, Zhang, Jinyuan, Li, Xiaojun, He, Yakun, Lai, Wenbin, Li, Ning, Ade, Harald, Brabec, Christoph J., and Li, Yongfang. Fri .
"High performance tandem organic solar cells via a strongly infrared-absorbing narrow bandgap acceptor". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20431-6. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1817063.
@article{osti_1817063,
title = {High performance tandem organic solar cells via a strongly infrared-absorbing narrow bandgap acceptor},
author = {Jia, Zhenrong and Qin, Shucheng and Meng, Lei and Ma, Qing and Angunawela, Indunil and Zhang, Jinyuan and Li, Xiaojun and He, Yakun and Lai, Wenbin and Li, Ning and Ade, Harald and Brabec, Christoph J. and Li, Yongfang},
abstractNote = {Tandem organic solar cells are based on the device structure monolithically connecting two solar cells to broaden overall absorption spectrum and utilize the photon energy more efficiently. Herein, we demonstrate a simple strategy of inserting a double bond between the central core and end groups of the small molecule acceptor Y6 to extend its conjugation length and absorption range. As a result, a new narrow bandgap acceptor BTPV-4F was synthesized with an optical bandgap of 1.21 eV. The single-junction devices based on BTPV-4F as acceptor achieved a power conversion efficiency of over 13.4% with a high short-circuit current density of 28.9 mA cm-2. With adopting BTPV-4F as the rear cell acceptor material, the resulting tandem devices reached a high power conversion efficiency of over 16.4% with good photostability. The results indicate that BTPV-4F is an efficient infrared-absorbing narrow bandgap acceptor and has great potential to be applied into tandem organic solar cells.},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-020-20431-6},
journal = {Nature Communications},
number = 1,
volume = 12,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2021},
month = {Fri Jan 08 00:00:00 EST 2021}
}
Works referenced in this record:
Optical modeling as optimization tool for single and double junction polymer solar cells
journal, August 2008
- Eerenstein, W.; Slooff, L. H.; Veenstra, S. C.
- Thin Solid Films, Vol. 516, Issue 20
Molecular Design of Photovoltaic Materials for Polymer Solar Cells: Toward Suitable Electronic Energy Levels and Broad Absorption
journal, January 2012
- Li, Yongfang
- Accounts of Chemical Research, Vol. 45, Issue 5
A Robust Inter-Connecting Layer for Achieving High Performance Tandem Polymer Solar Cells
journal, June 2011
- Yang, Jun; Zhu, Rui; Hong, Ziruo
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 30
Achieving over 16% efficiency for single-junction organic solar cells
journal, March 2019
- Fan, Baobing; Zhang, Difei; Li, Meijing
- Science China Chemistry, Vol. 62, Issue 6
Scalable, ambient atmosphere roll-to-roll manufacture of encapsulated large area, flexible organic tandem solar cell modules
journal, January 2014
- Andersen, Thomas R.; Dam, Henrik F.; Hösel, Markus
- Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 7, Issue 9
Exceeding 14% Efficiency for Solution-Processed Tandem Organic Solar Cells Combining Fullerene- and Nonfullerene-Based Subcells with Complementary Absorption
journal, September 2018
- Guo, Bing; Li, Wanbin; Luo, Guoping
- ACS Energy Letters, Vol. 3, Issue 10
Insertion of double bond π-bridges of A–D–A acceptors for high performance near-infrared polymer solar cells
journal, January 2017
- Li, Xiaojun; Yan, Tinghai; Bin, Haijun
- Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 5, Issue 43
Tandem-structured, hot electron based photovoltaic cell with double Schottky barriers
journal, April 2014
- Lee, Young Keun; Lee, Hyosun; Park, Jeong Young
- Scientific Reports, Vol. 4, Issue 1
Organic Photovoltaics over Three Decades
journal, June 2018
- Inganäs, Olle
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 35
Emerging Semitransparent Solar Cells: Materials and Device Design
journal, July 2017
- Tai, Qidong; Yan, Feng
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 34
Fullerene Derivative-Doped Zinc Oxide Nanofilm as the Cathode of Inverted Polymer Solar Cells with Low-Bandgap Polymer (PTB7-Th) for High Performance
journal, August 2013
- Liao, Sih-Hao; Jhuo, Hong-Jyun; Cheng, Yu-Shan
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 25, Issue 34
Systematic Investigation of Benzodithiophene- and Diketopyrrolopyrrole-Based Low-Bandgap Polymers Designed for Single Junction and Tandem Polymer Solar Cells
journal, June 2012
- Dou, Letian; Gao, Jing; Richard, Eric
- Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 134, Issue 24
An Electron Acceptor Challenging Fullerenes for Efficient Polymer Solar Cells
journal, January 2015
- Lin, Yuze; Wang, Jiayu; Zhang, Zhi-Guo
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 27, Issue 7
Unraveling the Microstructure‐Related Device Stability for Polymer Solar Cells Based on Nonfullerene Small‐Molecular Acceptors
journal, February 2020
- Du, Xiaoyan; Heumueller, Thomas; Gruber, Wolfgang
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 32, Issue 16
Achieving Fast Charge Separation and Low Nonradiative Recombination Loss by Rational Fluorination for High‐Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells
journal, November 2019
- Sun, Chenkai; Pan, Fei; Chen, Shanshan
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 52
Near-Infrared Ternary Tandem Solar Cells
journal, October 2018
- Li, Yongxi; Lin, Jiu-Dong; Liu, Xiao
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 45
A wide-bandgap conjugated polymer for highly efficient inverted single and tandem polymer solar cells
journal, January 2016
- Guo, Bing; Guo, Xia; Li, Wanbin
- Journal of Materials Chemistry A, Vol. 4, Issue 34
Near-Infrared Electron Acceptors with Fluorinated Regioisomeric Backbone for Highly Efficient Polymer Solar Cells
journal, November 2018
- Chen, Fang-Xiao; Xu, Jing-Qi; Liu, Zhi-Xi
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 52
A polymer tandem solar cell with 10.6% power conversion efficiency
journal, February 2013
- You, Jingbi; Dou, Letian; Yoshimura, Ken
- Nature Communications, Vol. 4, Issue 1
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
Design, Synthesis, and Photovoltaic Characterization of a Small Molecular Acceptor with an Ultra-Narrow Band Gap
journal, February 2017
- Yao, Huifeng; Cui, Yong; Yu, Runnan
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Vol. 56, Issue 11
Solution-processed organic tandem solar cells with power conversion efficiencies >12%
journal, December 2016
- Li, Miaomiao; Gao, Ke; Wan, Xiangjian
- Nature Photonics, Vol. 11, Issue 2
Low-bandgap conjugated polymers enabling solution-processable tandem solar cells
journal, July 2017
- Li, Gang; Chang, Wei-Hsuan; Yang, Yang
- Nature Reviews Materials, Vol. 2, Issue 8
Non-fullerene acceptors for organic solar cells
journal, February 2018
- Yan, Cenqi; Barlow, Stephen; Wang, Zhaohui
- Nature Reviews Materials, Vol. 3, Issue 3
High-Efficiency Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells with a Parallel Tandem Configuration
journal, July 2017
- Zuo, Lijian; Yu, Jiangsheng; Shi, Xueliang
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 34
Revealing Minor Electrical Losses in the Interconnecting Layers of Organic Tandem Solar Cells
journal, August 2017
- Prosa, Mario; Li, Ning; Gasparini, Nicola
- Advanced Materials Interfaces, Vol. 4, Issue 21
Roll-to-roll fabrication of polymer solar cells
journal, January 2012
- Søndergaard, Roar; Hösel, Markus; Angmo, Dechan
- Materials Today, Vol. 15, Issue 1-2
Single-Junction Organic Solar Cell Containing a Fluorinated Heptacyclic Carbazole-Based Ladder-Type Acceptor Affords over 13% Efficiency with Solution-Processed Cross-Linkable Fullerene as an Interfacial Layer
journal, August 2019
- Chen, Tsung-Wei; Chang, Chia-Chih; Hsiao, Yu-Tang
- ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 11, Issue 34
Towards 15% energy conversion efficiency: a systematic study of the solution-processed organic tandem solar cells based on commercially available materials
journal, January 2013
- Li, Ning; Baran, Derya; Forberich, Karen
- Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 6, Issue 12
Quadruple Junction Polymer Solar Cells with Four Complementary Absorber Layers
journal, August 2018
- Di Carlo Rasi, Dario; Hendriks, Koen H.; Wienk, Martijn M.
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 40
Single-Junction Organic Solar Cell with over 15% Efficiency Using Fused-Ring Acceptor with Electron-Deficient Core
journal, April 2019
- Yuan, Jun; Zhang, Yunqiang; Zhou, Liuyang
- Joule, Vol. 3, Issue 4
Organic solar cells based on non-fullerene acceptors
journal, January 2018
- Hou, Jianhui; Inganäs, Olle; Friend, Richard H.
- Nature Materials, Vol. 17, Issue 2
Quantifying Bimolecular Recombination Losses in Organic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells
journal, February 2011
- Koster, L. Jan Anton; Kemerink, Martijn; Wienk, Martijn M.
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 14
Acceptor–donor–acceptor type molecules for high performance organic photovoltaics – chemistry and mechanism
journal, January 2020
- Wan, Xiangjian; Li, Chenxi; Zhang, Mingtao
- Chemical Society Reviews, Vol. 49, Issue 9
Improvement of Photovoltaic Performance of Polymer Solar Cells by Rational Molecular Optimization of Organic Molecule Acceptors
journal, June 2018
- Li, Xiaojun; Yao, Jia; Angunawela, Indunil
- Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 8, Issue 23
Efficient Tandem Organic Photovoltaics with Tunable Rear Sub-cells
journal, February 2019
- Cheng, Pei; Liu, Yuqiang; Chang, Sheng-Yung
- Joule, Vol. 3, Issue 2
Organic and solution-processed tandem solar cells with 17.3% efficiency
journal, August 2018
- Meng, Lingxian; Zhang, Yamin; Wan, Xiangjian
- Science, Vol. 361, Issue 6407
High fabrication yield organic tandem photovoltaics combining vacuum- and solution-processed subcells with 15% efficiency
journal, April 2018
- Che, Xiaozhou; Li, Yongxi; Qu, Yue
- Nature Energy, Vol. 3, Issue 5
Improved Charge Transport and Reduced Nonradiative Energy Loss Enable Over 16% Efficiency in Ternary Polymer Solar Cells
journal, June 2019
- Yu, Runnan; Yao, Huifeng; Cui, Yong
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 36
Fine-Tuned Photoactive and Interconnection Layers for Achieving over 13% Efficiency in a Fullerene-Free Tandem Organic Solar Cell
journal, May 2017
- Cui, Yong; Yao, Huifeng; Gao, Bowei
- Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 139, Issue 21
Polymer solar cells
journal, February 2012
- Li, Gang; Zhu, Rui; Yang, Yang
- Nature Photonics, Vol. 6, Issue 3
Single‐Junction Organic Photovoltaic Cells with Approaching 18% Efficiency
journal, March 2020
- Cui, Yong; Yao, Huifeng; Zhang, Jianqi
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 32, Issue 19
Synthesis and Photovoltaic Properties of a Series of Narrow Bandgap Organic Semiconductor Acceptors with Their Absorption Edge Reaching 900 nm
journal, November 2017
- Li, Xiaojun; Huang, He; Bin, Haijun
- Chemistry of Materials, Vol. 29, Issue 23
Efficient Tandem Polymer Solar Cells Fabricated by All-Solution Processing
journal, July 2007
- Kim, Jin Young; Lee, Kwanghee; Coates, Nelson E.
- Science, Vol. 317, Issue 5835, p. 222-225
Recent progress of interconnecting layer for tandem organic solar cells
journal, March 2017
- Lu, Shunmian; Ouyang, Dan; Choy, Wallace C. H.
- Science China Chemistry, Vol. 60, Issue 4
Near-Infrared Tandem Organic Photodiodes for Future Application in Artificial Retinal Implants
journal, October 2018
- Simone, Giulio; Di Carlo Rasi, Dario; de Vries, Xander
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 51
Enhanced power-conversion efficiency in polymer solar cells using an inverted device structure
journal, August 2012
- He, Zhicai; Zhong, Chengmei; Su, Shijian
- Nature Photonics, Vol. 6, Issue 9, p. 591-595
Nonfullerene Tandem Organic Solar Cells with High Open-Circuit Voltage of 1.97 V
journal, September 2016
- Liu, Wenqing; Li, Shuixing; Huang, Jiang
- Advanced Materials, Vol. 28, Issue 44