Equally high efficiencies of organic solar cells processed from different solvents reveal key factors for morphology control

Zhang, Rui; Chen, Haiyang; Wang, Tonghui; Kobera, Libor; He, Lilin; Huang, Yuting; Ding, Junyuan; Zhang, Ben; Khasbaatar, Azzaya; Nanayakkara, Sadisha; Zheng, Jialei; Chen, Weijie; Diao, Ying; Abbrent, Sabina; Brus, Jiri; Coffey, Aidan H.; Zhu, Chenhui; Liu, Heng; Lu, Xinhui; Jiang, Qing; Coropceanu, Veaceslav; Brédas, Jean-Luc; Li, Yongfang; Li, Yaowen; Gao, Feng

doi:10.1038/s41560-024-01678-5

Title: Equally high efficiencies of organic solar cells processed from different solvents reveal key factors for morphology control

Journal Article · 04 December 2024 · Nature Energy

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01678-5 · OSTI ID:2497302

^[1];

^[2];

^[3];

^[4];

^[5]; Huang, Yuting ^[2]; Ding, Junyuan ^[2]; Zhang, Ben ^[2]; Khasbaatar, Azzaya ^[6]; Nanayakkara, Sadisha ^[7]; Zheng, Jialei ^[2];

^[2];

^[6]; Abbrent, Sabina ^[4];

^[4];

^[8]; Zhu, Chenhui ^[8]; Liu, Heng ^[9];

^[9];

^[3] more »

Linköping University (Sweden)
Soochow University, Suzhou (China)
Jilin Univ., Changchun (China)
Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS), Prague (Czech Republic)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Advanced Light Source (ALS)
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Ma Liu Shui, Shatin (Hong Kong)
Soochow University, Suzhou (China); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China)

The power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells (OSCs) is exceeding 20%, an advance in which morphology optimization has played a significant role. It is generally accepted that the processing solvent (or solvent mixture) can help optimize morphology, impacting the OSC efficiency. Here we develop OSCs that show strong tolerance to a range of processing solvents, with all devices delivering high power conversion efficiencies around 19%. By investigating the solution states, the film formation dynamics and the characteristics of the processed films both experimentally and computationally, we identify the key factors that control morphology, that is, the interactions between the side chains of the acceptor materials and the solvent as well as the interactions between the donor and acceptor materials. Our work provides new understanding on the long-standing question of morphology control and effective guides to design OSC materials towards practical applications, where green solvents are required for large-scale processing.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Cite

Export

Save

Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); US Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Scientific User Facilities (SUF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 2497302

Journal Information:: Nature Energy, Journal Name: Nature Energy Vol. 10; ISSN 2058-7546

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (53)

Solvent-Induced Morphology in Polymer-Based Systems for Organic Photovoltaics Ruderer, Matthias A.; Guo, Shuai; Meier, Robert Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 21, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201100945	journal	July 2011
Low Temperature Aggregation Transitions in N3 and Y6 Acceptors Enable Double‐Annealing Method That Yields Hierarchical Morphology and Superior Efficiency in Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells Qin, Yunpeng; Xu, Ye; Peng, Zhengxing Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 30, Issue 46 https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202005011	journal	September 2020
Dual‐Additive‐Driven Morphology Optimization for Solvent‐Annealing‐Free All‐Small‐Molecule Organic Solar Cells Liu, Heng; Fu, Yuang; Chen, Zeng Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 33, Issue 36 https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202303307	journal	May 2023
Efficient Polymer Solar Cells Based on a Low Bandgap Semi-crystalline DPP Polymer-PCBM Blends Liu, Feng; Gu, Yu; Wang, Cheng Advanced Materials, Vol. 24, Issue 29 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201200902	journal	June 2012
An Electron Acceptor Challenging Fullerenes for Efficient Polymer Solar Cells Lin, Yuze; Wang, Jiayu; Zhang, Zhi-Guo Advanced Materials, Vol. 27, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201404317	journal	January 2015
Rational Tuning of Molecular Interaction and Energy Level Alignment Enables High‐Performance Organic Photovoltaics Wang, Rui; Yuan, Jun; Wang, Rui Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 43 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201904215	journal	September 2019
Resolving Atomic‐Scale Interactions in Nonfullerene Acceptor Organic Solar Cells with Solid‐State NMR Spectroscopy, Crystallographic Modelling, and Molecular Dynamics Simulations R. Luginbuhl, Benjamin; Raval, Parth; Pawlak, Tomasz Advanced Materials, Vol. 34, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202105943	journal	December 2021
Binary Organic Solar Cells Breaking 19% via Manipulating the Vertical Component Distribution Wei, Yanan; Chen, Zhihao; Lu, Guanyu Advanced Materials, Vol. 34, Issue 33 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202204718	journal	July 2022
20.2% Efficiency Organic Photovoltaics Employing a π‐Extension Quinoxaline‐Based Acceptor with Ordered Arrangement Chen, Zhenyu; Ge, Jinfeng; Song, Wei Advanced Materials, Vol. 36, Issue 33 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202406690	journal	June 2024
Efficient Organic Solar Cell with 16.88% Efficiency Enabled by Refined Acceptor Crystallization and Morphology with Improved Charge Transfer and Transport Properties Zhu, Lei; Zhang, Ming; Zhou, Guanqing Advanced Energy Materials, Vol. 10, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201904234	journal	March 2020
Controlling aggregate formation in conjugated polymers by spin-coating below the critical temperature of the disorder-order transition Reichenberger, Markus; Kroh, Daniel; Matrone, Giovanni M. M. Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics, Vol. 56, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1002/polb.24562	journal	December 2017
Fast Parallel Algorithms for Short-Range Molecular Dynamics Plimpton, Steve Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 117, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1006/jcph.1995.1039	journal	March 1995
Ultrafast photoinduced electron transfer in conducting polymer—buckminsterfullerene composites Kraabel, B.; Lee, C. H.; McBranch, D. Chemical Physics Letters, Vol. 213, Issue 3-4 https://doi.org/10.1016/0009-2614(93)85151-D	journal	October 1993
Single-Junction Organic Solar Cell with over 15% Efficiency Using Fused-Ring Acceptor with Electron-Deficient Core Yuan, Jun; Zhang, Yunqiang; Zhou, Liuyang Joule, Vol. 3, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2019.01.004	journal	April 2019
Optimization Requirements of Efficient Polythiophene:Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells Liang, Ziqi; Li, Miaomiao; Wang, Qi Joule, Vol. 4, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2020.04.014	journal	June 2020
drtsans: The data reduction toolkit for small-angle neutron scattering at Oak Ridge National Laboratory Heller, William T.; Hetrick, John; Bilheux, Jean SoftwareX, Vol. 19 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2022.101101	journal	July 2022
Solution Aggregate Structures of Donor Polymers Determine the Morphology and Processing Resiliency of Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells Khasbaatar, Azzaya; Cheng, Andrew; Jones, Austin L. Chemistry of Materials, Vol. 35, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.2c02141	journal	March 2023
From Solution to Thin Film: Molecular Assembly of π-Conjugated Systems and Impact on (Opto)electronic Properties Khasbaatar, Azzaya; Xu, Zhuang; Lee, Jong-Hoon Chemical Reviews, Vol. 123, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.2c00905	journal	June 2023
Ultrafast Hole Transfer and Carrier Transport Controlled by Nanoscale-Phase Morphology in Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells Chen, Zeng; Chen, Xu; Qiu, Beibei The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, Vol. 11, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.0c00919	journal	April 2020
Replacing Alkyl with Oligo(ethylene glycol) as Side Chains of Conjugated Polymers for Close π–π Stacking Meng, Bin; Song, Haiyang; Chen, Xingxing Macromolecules, Vol. 48, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.5b00702	journal	June 2015
Molecular Orientation and Phase Separation by Controlling Chain Segment and Molecule Movement in P3HT/N2200 Blends Zhang, Rui; Yang, Hua; Zhou, Ke Macromolecules, Vol. 49, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.6b01526	journal	September 2016
To Reveal the Importance of the Crystallization Sequence on Micro-Morphological Structures of All-Crystalline Polymer Blends by In Situ Investigation Zhang, Rui; Yan, Ye; Zhang, Qiang ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 13, Issue 18 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.1c02984	journal	April 2021
Characterization of Biaryl Torsional Energetics and its Treatment in OPLS All-Atom Force Fields Dahlgren, Markus K.; Schyman, Patric; Tirado-Rives, Julian Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, Vol. 53, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1021/ci4001597	journal	April 2013
Conjugated Polymer-Based Organic Solar Cells Günes, Serap; Neugebauer, Helmut; Sariciftci, Niyazi Serdar Chemical Reviews, Vol. 107, Issue 4, p. 1324-1338 https://doi.org/10.1021/cr050149z	journal	April 2007
The OPLS [optimized potentials for liquid simulations] potential functions for proteins, energy minimizations for crystals of cyclic peptides and crambin Jorgensen, William L.; Tirado-Rives, Julian Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 110, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1021/ja00214a001	journal	March 1988
Processing Additives for Improved Efficiency from Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells Lee, Jae Kwan; Ma, Wan Li; Brabec, Christoph J. Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 130, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1021/ja710079w	journal	March 2008
Organic Photovoltaics: Understanding the Preaggregation of Polymer Donors in Solution and Its Morphological Impact Wang, Tonghui; Brédas, Jean-Luc Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 143, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.0c09542	journal	January 2021
Conformational Order in Aggregates of Conjugated Polymers Jackson, Nicholas E.; Kohlstedt, Kevin L.; Savoie, Brett M. Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 137, Issue 19 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5b00493	journal	May 2015
Three-Dimensional Nanoscale Organization of Bulk Heterojunction Polymer Solar Cells Bavel, Svetlana S. van; Sourty, Erwan; With, Gijsbertus de Nano Letters, Vol. 9, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1021/nl8014022	journal	February 2009
Efficient photodiodes from interpenetrating polymer networks Halls, J. J. M.; Walsh, C. A.; Greenham, N. C. Nature, Vol. 376, Issue 6540, p. 498-500 https://doi.org/10.1038/376498a0	journal	August 1995
Aggregation and morphology control enables multiple cases of high-efficiency polymer solar cells Liu, Yuhang; Zhao, Jingbo; Li, Zhengke Nature Communications, Vol. 5, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6293	journal	November 2014
Efficiency enhancement in low-bandgap polymer solar cells by processing with alkane dithiols Peet, J.; Kim, J. Y.; Coates, N. E. Nature Materials, Vol. 6, Issue 7, p. 497-500 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1928	journal	May 2007
A general relationship between disorder, aggregation and charge transport in conjugated polymers Noriega, Rodrigo; Rivnay, Jonathan; Vandewal, Koen Nature Materials, Vol. 12, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3722	journal	August 2013
Reducing the efficiency–stability–cost gap of organic photovoltaics with highly efficient and stable small molecule acceptor ternary solar cells Baran, Derya; Ashraf, Raja Shahid; Hanifi, David A. Nature Materials, Vol. 16, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4797	journal	November 2016
Long-range exciton diffusion in molecular non-fullerene acceptors Firdaus, Yuliar; Le Corre, Vincent M.; Karuthedath, Safakath Nature Communications, Vol. 11, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19029-9	journal	October 2020
Pseudo-bilayer architecture enables high-performance organic solar cells with enhanced exciton diffusion length Jiang, Kui; Zhang, Jie; Peng, Zhengxing Nature Communications, Vol. 12, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20791-z	journal	January 2021
Small reorganization energy acceptors enable low energy losses in non-fullerene organic solar cells Shi, Yanan; Chang, Yilin; Lu, Kun Nature Communications, Vol. 13, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30927-y	journal	June 2022
Sub-10-fs observation of bound exciton formation in organic optoelectronic devices Maimaris, Marios; Pettipher, Allan J.; Azzouzi, Mohammed Nature Communications, Vol. 13, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32478-8	journal	August 2022
Deuteration-enhanced neutron contrasts to probe amorphous domain sizes in organic photovoltaic bulk heterojunction films Cai, Guilong; Li, Yuhao; Fu, Yuang Nature Communications, Vol. 15, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47052-7	journal	March 2024
Wide-gap non-fullerene acceptor enabling high-performance organic photovoltaic cells for indoor applications Cui, Yong; Wang, Yuming; Bergqvist, Jonas Nature Energy, Vol. 4, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0448-5	journal	August 2019
The role of exciton lifetime for charge generation in organic solar cells at negligible energy-level offsets Classen, Andrej; Chochos, Christos L.; Lüer, Larry Nature Energy, Vol. 5, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-020-00684-7	journal	August 2020
A guest-assisted molecular-organization approach for >17% efficiency organic solar cells using environmentally friendly solvents Chen, Haiyang; Zhang, Rui; Chen, Xiaobin Nature Energy, Vol. 6, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00923-5	journal	November 2021
Origins of the open-circuit voltage in ternary organic solar cells and design rules for minimized voltage losses Wang, Yuming; Yu, Jianwei; Zhang, Rui Nature Energy, Vol. 8, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01309-5	journal	July 2023
Non-fullerene acceptor with asymmetric structure and phenyl-substituted alkyl side chain for 20.2% efficiency organic solar cells Jiang, Yuanyuan; Sun, Shaoming; Xu, Renjie Nature Energy, Vol. 9, Issue 8 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01557-z	journal	June 2024
Intrinsic efficiency limits in low-bandgap non-fullerene acceptor organic solar cells Karuthedath, Safakath; Gorenflot, Julien; Firdaus, Yuliar Nature Materials, Vol. 20, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-00835-x	journal	October 2020
Single-junction organic solar cells with over 19% efficiency enabled by a refined double-fibril network morphology Zhu, Lei; Zhang, Ming; Xu, Jinqiu Nature Materials, Vol. 21, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01244-y	journal	May 2022
Dilution effect for highly efficient multiple-component organic solar cells Zuo, Lijian; Jo, Sae Byeok; Li, Yaokai Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 17, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-021-01011-1	journal	December 2021
High-efficiency organic solar cells with low non-radiative recombination loss and low energetic disorder Liu, Sha; Yuan, Jun; Deng, Wanyuan Nature Photonics, Vol. 14, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-019-0573-5	journal	January 2020
Tuning the solution aggregation and molecular order for efficient and thermally stable polymer solar cells Gao, Mengyuan; Wu, Junjiang; Yuan, Xiyue Energy & Environmental Science, Vol. 16, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1039/D3EE02354K	journal	January 2023
Charge separation and photovoltaic conversion in polymer composites with internal donor/acceptor heterojunctions Yu, G.; Heeger, A. J. Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 78, Issue 7, p. 4510-4515 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.359792	journal	October 1995
Tandem organic solar cells with 20.6% efficiency enabled by reduced voltage losses Wang, Jianqiu; Zheng, Zhong; Bi, Pengqing National Science Review, Vol. 10, Issue 6 https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwad085	journal	March 2023
The suite of small-angle neutron scattering instruments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory Heller, William T.; Cuneo, Matthew; Debeer-Schmitt, Lisa Journal of Applied Crystallography, Vol. 51, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600576718001231	journal	February 2018
Polymer Photovoltaic Cells: Enhanced Efficiencies via a Network of Internal Donor-Acceptor Heterojunctions Yu, G.; Gao, J.; Hummelen, J. C. Science, Vol. 270, Issue 5243, p. 1789-1791 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.270.5243.1789	journal	December 1995

Similar Records

Side Chain and Solvent Direction of Film Morphology in Small-Molecule Organic Solar Materials

Journal Article · 2019 · Chemistry of Materials · OSTI ID:1574135

Manley, Eric F.; Harschneck, Tobias; Eastham, Nicholas D.; +6 more

Efficient Organic Solar Cell with 16.88% Efficiency Enabled by Refined Acceptor Crystallization and Morphology with Improved Charge Transfer and Transport Properties

Journal Article · 2020 · Advanced Energy Materials · OSTI ID:1618144

Zhu, Lei; Zhang, Ming; Zhou, Guanqing; +14 more

Dual aggregation steering in bulk-heterojunction via solvent engineering toward efficient and stable binary organic solar cells

Journal Article · 2025 · Chemical Engineering Journal · OSTI ID:3017373

Lin, Yijing; Zheng, Bing; Liu, Xingting; +5 more

Related Subjects

14 SOLAR ENERGY

Title: Equally high efficiencies of organic solar cells processed from different solvents reveal key factors for morphology control

Citation Formats

References (53)

Similar Records

Related Subjects