Issue 30, 2017

A thermally and mechanically stable solar cell made of a small-molecule donor and a polymer acceptor

Abstract

We performed systematic experiments based on a small molecule donor and a polymer acceptor containing a naphthalene diimide (NDI)-based polymer as compared with fullerene-based acceptor (PC71BM) solar cells. Among polymer acceptors, the NDI-based polymer (PNDI-2T) shows good properties such as broad light absorbance with a strong absorption co-efficient and a well oriented crystalline structure leading to high electron mobility. We monitored the photovoltaic properties of both PNDI-2T and PC71BM acceptors with a BDT2TR donor. Although the BDT2TR:PC71BM device showed a higher PCE of 8.20%, the BDT2TR:PNDI-2T device also showed remarkable photovoltaic results with a PCE of 4.43%, VOC of 0.86 V, JSC of 7.26 mA cm−2, and FF of 71% indicating one of the highest efficiencies for small molecule donor and non-fullerene polymer acceptor systems. In particular, the PNDI-2T acceptor showed excellent thermal stability and intrinsic mechanical performance as compared with the PC71BM acceptor. To demonstrate the potential of the polymer acceptor for solar devices, we fabricated a device for testing thermal stability, high thickness tolerance, and the flexibility of the solar cell with bending stress. As a result, the PNDI-2T-based solar cell exhibited excellent thermal stability at 150 °C for 15 h and the PCE of the BDT2TR:PNDI-2T device with a thick active layer (around 610 nm) maintained 80% of its initial value. Moreover, the flexible device with the BDT2TR:PNDI-2T system retained its homogeneous morphology and showed maintained photovoltaic performance even after 100 bending cycles. Therefore, PNDI-2T based organic solar cells have good potential for application as flexible and portable real energy generators.

Graphical abstract: A thermally and mechanically stable solar cell made of a small-molecule donor and a polymer acceptor

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
22 May 2017
Accepted
03 Jul 2017
First published
05 Jul 2017

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017,5, 15923-15931

A thermally and mechanically stable solar cell made of a small-molecule donor and a polymer acceptor

S. Oh, S. Badgujar, D. H. Kim, W. Lee, N. Khan, M. Jahandar, S. Rasool, C. E. Song, H. K. Lee, W. S. Shin, J. Lee, S. Moon and S. K. Lee, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017, 5, 15923 DOI: 10.1039/C7TA04445C

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