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Title: Understanding the Impact of Hierarchical Nanostructure in Ternary Organic Solar Cells

Journal Article · · Advanced Science
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [3];  [1];  [3];  [3];  [4];  [3]
  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing 100190 P. R. China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049 P. R. China
  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing 100190 P. R. China; State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049 P. R. China
  3. CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing 100190 P. R. China
  4. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710049 P. R. China

Ternary organic solar cells (OSCs), which blend two donors and fullerene derivatives with different absorption ranges, are a promising potential strategy for high-power conversion efficiencies (PCEs). In this study, inverted ternary OSCs are fabricated by blending a highly crystalline small molecule BDT-3T-CNCOO in a low band gap polymer PBDTTT-C-T:PC71BM. As the small molecule is introduced, the overall PCEs increase from 7.60% to 8.58%. The morphologies of ternary blends are studied by combining transmission electron microscopy and X-ray scattering techniques at different length scales. Hierarchical phase separation is revealed in the ternary blend, which is composed of domains with sizes of ≈88, ≈50, and ≈20 nm, respectively. The hierarchical phase separation balances the charge separation and transport in ternary OSCs. As a result, the fill factors of the devices significantly improve from 58.4% to 71.6%. Thus, ternary blends show higher hole mobility and higher fill factor than binary blends, which demonstrates a facile strategy to increase the performance of OSCs.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); Ministry of Science and Technology of China; Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission; Chinese Academy of Sciences
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; 21125420; 91427302; 2011CB932300; Z141100003814010
OSTI ID:
1623466
Journal Information:
Advanced Science, Vol. 2, Issue 10; ISSN 2198-3844
Publisher:
WileyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Polymer/Small Molecule/Fullerene Based Ternary Solar Cells journal April 2017
Combining Energy Transfer and Optimized Morphology for Highly Efficient Ternary Polymer Solar Cells journal February 2017
Enhancing the Photovoltaic Performance via Vertical Phase Distribution Optimization in Small Molecule:PC 71 BM Blends journal September 2017
Morphology Control in Organic Solar Cells journal March 2018
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Theoretical simulations of nanostructures self-assembled from copolymer systems journal January 2016
High open-circuit voltage ternary organic solar cells based on ICBA as acceptor and absorption-complementary donors journal January 2017
Nematic liquid crystal materials as a morphology regulator for ternary small molecule solar cells with power conversion efficiency exceeding 10% journal January 2017