Open Access Article
Minming
Yan
a,
Peter J.
Skabara
*a and
Hong
Meng
*b
aWestCHEM, School of Chemistry, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK. E-mail: peter.skabara@glasgow.ac.uk
bSchool of Advanced Materials, Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School, Shenzhen, 518055, China. E-mail: menghong@pku.edu.cn
First published on 30th May 2023
Semi-transparent organic solar cells (ST-OSCs) require carefully selected active layer materials and one key requirement, the average visible transmittance (AVT), can be optimised through an engineering strategy by choosing appropriate donors and acceptors. Herein, an efficient ternary active layer is fabricated by using two wide bandgap (3.0 eV) star-shaped small molecules BFN or BFSN and a middle bandgap polymer PM6 as mixed donors, and a narrow bandgap non-fullerene Y6 as acceptor. By controlling the ratio of BFN or BFSN and PM6, the AVT of films can be optimised without changing the thickness. Without optical engineering, compared to an AVT of 26% in the binary active layer (PM6
:
Y6 = 1.3
:
1.5), the ternary active layers with BFN/BFSN
:
PM6
:
Y6 = 0.65
:
0.65
:
1.5 display a higher AVT of 60% and 62%, respectively, at a thickness of 100 nm. By further increasing the ratio of BFN/BFSN in the active layer, the AVT of ternary active films based on BFN/BFSN
:
PM6
:
Y6 = 1
:
0.3
:
1.5 at 100 nm thickness can reach 67%. The ternary ST-OSC based on BFN and BFSN in a ratio of 0.65 provides a comparable power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 10.01% (BFN) and 11.18% (BFSN) to 12.81% for the PM6:Y6 binary OSCs after a silver electrode deposition. However, in a higher blended ratio of BFN or BFSN (BFN/BFSN
:
PM6
:
Y6 = 1
:
0.3
:
1.5), the PCE shows a significant decrease due to the morphology of the active layer, which shows that the components are less well mixed. It was also noted that BFSN-based ternary ST-OSCs offer higher PCE than BFN-based ST-OSCs because of higher hole mobility for BFSN compared to BFN.
In the field of OSCs, recent breakthroughs in high PCE of OSCs are based on middle bandgap (Eg) polymer donors (e.g., PCPDTFBT, PSBTBT and PM6, with Eg from 1.44 to 1.80 eV) in combination with non-fullerene acceptors (e.g., ITIC, IHIC, Y6, L8-BO and IT-4Cl with Eg from 1.33 and 1.59 eV).10,15–20 It makes sense to apply such active layers in the fabrication of ST-OSCs because of their high efficiency. For characterising the ST-OSCs, the average visible transmittance (AVT, typically based on the wavelength range of 370 to 780 nm) is another key parameter used to evaluate the performance of such devices. However, an inversely changing relationship between the PCE and AVT is commonly observed in the materials provided above. The AVT is mainly restricted by the absorption behaviours of the middle Eg polymer donors, whose strong absorption bands strongly overlap with the photopic response region of the human eye, reducing the AVT in a thick active layer. However, although a thin active layer can improve the AVT, it cannot meet the requirements of sufficient light absorption, resulting in an inferior PCE. Therefore, under the premise of maintaining the thickness of ST-OSCs, an ideal strategy for fabricating ST-OSC devices is to avoid visible photon-consuming polymer donors by using alternative materials. To achieve this goal, a strategy of fabricating ternary or quaternary ST-OSCs, using a wide bandgap (Eg) material as the second donor or host in the active layer, is commonly applied that allows visible light penetration and maintains sufficient thickness of the active layer. Most recently, Chen et al. used the 3.0 eV Eg fluorescent polymer FC-S1 as a host for PM6:Y6 solar cells. By adjusting the ratio to FC-S1
:
PM6
:
Y6-BO = 1
:
0.3
:
1.5, the devices achieved a PCE of 6.01% with an AVT of 49.28% in a 30 nm thick active layer.21 Xie et al. used the polymer PCDTBT as a host in PTB7-Th:IEICO-4Cl, which can be optimised to a PCE of 6.30% with an AVT of 43.93% in a film of 90 nm thickness.22 Instead of using wide Eg polymers as host or second donors, small molecules can also be used as donors to fabricate OSCs. Even though small molecular donors are rarely reported, some examples can be listed in binary OSCs containing chemical structures such as oligothiophene DRCN7T,23 and N,N′-diaryl-diamines.24 In ternary ST-OSCs, Huang et al. applied a small molecule, [2-(9-H-carbazol-9-yl)ethyl] phosphonic acid (2PACz) as an in situ self-organised hole transport interlayer and as a second donor, to achieve PEDOT-free ST-OSCs with a PCE of 15.2% and an AVT of 19.2%.25 In these strategies, the polymer and small molecules are utilised as hole-transport materials, demonstrating the feasibility of fabricating 2D/1A ternary ST-OSCs.
In our work, two large Eg (ca. 3.0 eV) star-shaped materials, tris(dihexyl-fluorenyl-N,N’-diaryl-amine)benzenes (BFN and BFSN, Fig. 1), were synthesised and employed as the second donor to give BFN/BFSN:PM6:Y6 ternary systems. At a film thickness of 100 nm, the ternary active layer, BFN/BFSN
:
PM6
:
Y6 = 0.65
:
0.65
:
1.5, achieved AVTs of 60% and 62%, respectively, with much higher transmittance than the PM6:Y6 binary film with an AVT of 26% with the same thickness. Furthermore, after the deposition of cathodes, the OSCs achieved PCEs of 10.01% and 11.18%, which represents only a slight decrease in PCE compared to a PCE of 12.81% in the binary PM6:Y6 devices. The results indicate that the ternary structures containing large Eg small molecule star-shaped donors are promising for high-performance ST-OSCs.
![]() | ||
| Fig. 1 (a) The chemical structures of BFN, BFSN, PM6 and Y6; (b) the normalised absorption spectra of BFN, BFSN, PM6 and Y6 films. | ||
Fig. 2 and Table 1 demonstrate the contribution of BFN and BFSN to the transmittance of a semi-transparent device. In a structure of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/ternary active layer structure, compared to the binary PM6:Y6 active layer structure in 100 nm thickness with an AVT of 26%, the AVTs of ternary active layers with the same thickness were improved to 60–67% by adjusting the ratio of BFN or BFSN
:
PM6
:
Y6 from 0.65
:
0.65
:
1.5 to 1
:
0.3
:
1.5 (Table 1). The transmittance of active layers is significantly improved when BFN and BFSN are used as second donors in the active layer. However, with a higher ratio of BFN and BFSN in blended films, the improvement of AVT is not so significant (an additional 5–7%).
| Ternary active layer | AVT (%) |
|---|---|
PM6 : Y6 = 1.3 : 1.5 |
26 |
BFN : PM6 : Y6 = 1 : 0.3 : 1.5 |
67 |
BFSN : PM6 : Y6 = 1 : 0.3 : 1.5 |
67 |
BFN : PM6 : Y6 = 0.65 : 0.65 : 1.5 |
60 |
BFSN : PM6 : Y6 = 0.65 : 0.65 : 1.5 |
62 |
![]() | ||
| Fig. 3 (a) The device structure for the ternary OSCs. (b) The energy levels of the materials in the active layer. | ||
In Table 2 and Fig. 4, the performance of the OSC devices is shown. As listed in Table 2, the device with the PM6:Y6 binary active layer with a thickness of 100 nm displays a PCE of 12.81%. In a ratio of BFN/BFSN
:
PM6
:
Y6 = 0.65
:
0.65
:
1.5, the PCE of devices is only slightly decreased to 10.01% and 11.18%. If the proportion of BFN and BFSN further increases to a ratio of BFN/BFSN
:
PM6
:
Y6 = 1
:
0.3
:
1.5, the performance of devices halves the efficiency to 5.34% and 6.06% for BFN and BFSN blended active layers, respectively.
| V oc (V) | J sc (mA cm−2) | FF (%) | PCE (%) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
PM6 : Y6 = 1.3 : 1.5 |
0.81 | 27.04 | 58.81 | 12.81 |
BFN : PM6 : Y6 = 1 : 0.3 : 1.5 |
0.86 | 10.65 | 57.97 | 5.34 |
BFSN : PM6 : Y6 = 1 : 0.3 : 1.5 |
0.85 | 13.17 | 53.99 | 6.06 |
BFN : PM6 : Y6 = 0.65 : 0.65 : 1.5 |
0.84 | 20.53 | 58.93 | 10.01 |
BFSN : PM6 : Y6 = 0.65 : 0.65 : 1.5 |
0.84 | 22.83 | 57.75 | 11.18 |
However, a slight increase of Voc was observed from 0.81 V for binary devices to 0.84–0.86 V for ternary devices by using BFN and BFSN as second donors. This could be due to a p–n heterojunction forming between BFN/BFSN and Y6, but this heterojunction is insufficient to compare it with the strong interaction between PM6 and Y6. The external quantum efficiency (EQE) spectra are shown in Fig. 4b. As the ratio of BFN or BFSN in the ternary active layer increases, the ternary device demonstrates lower photo-responses in the PM6 and Y6 absorbing region (Fig. S1, ESI‡), leading to lower Jsc in the ternary OSCs. It is worth noticing that there is only a mild decrease of EQE in the BFN and BFSN absorbing region (around 380 nm) when a high ratio of BFN and BFSN was used. It can be considered as evidence for exciton dissociation between BFN/BFSN and Y6.
:
PM6
:
Y6= 0.65
:
0.65
:
1.5, the morphology is similar to that of the non-blended binary film, with Rq of 4.18 nm and 8.18 nm for BFN and BFSN blended films, respectively. However, at a high ratio of BFN and BFSN blended films (BFN/BFSN
:
PM6
:
Y6 = 1
:
0.3
:
1.5), the Rq was dramatically increased to 39.8 nm and 21.2 nm for BFN and BFSN blended films, respectively. This indicates that in low-ratio blended BFN and BFSN films, the presence of BFN and BFSN has a limited effect on changing the morphology. However, in films with high-ratio BFN and BFSN films, the morphology is dominated by BFN and BFSN which could suffer from aggregation or crystallisation in films. As a consequence, a large leaking current can be generated, which, as we have observed, leads to a fall in PCE.
:
PM6
:
Y6 (0.65
:
0.65
:
1.5), PCEs of 10.01% and 11.18% were achieved in devices with an AVT of 60% and 62% before cathode deposition. Compared to the binary OSCs (PM6
:
Y6 = 1.3
:
1.5, PCE = 12.81%, and AVT = 26%), this is a significant improvement in AVT only with a small sacrifice in PCE. Further investigations revealed that BFSN has higher hole mobility than BFN, which leads to better performance (higher Jsc) in BFSN blended devices. In addition, by using a high ratio of BFN and BFSN in the active layer (BFN/BFSN
:
PM6
:
Y6 = 1
:
0.3
:
1.5), the morphology of active layers becomes detrimental to device performance, resulting in a huge decrease in PCE with only a slight increase in AVT. As an innovative attempt, our results suggest that the selection of appropriate donor mixtures in the active layer of OSCs is a potential direction for the development of desirable ST-OSCs. In recent work, the application of a wide bandgap polymer (2.20 eV) in ternary ST-OSCs gave a best performing device with a PCE of 10.01% and AVT of 30.48%.30 Given that there was only a 30% to 40% transmittance loss after depositing the ultrathin metal transparent electrode (UMTE),31–33 the estimated AVT after depositing UMTE for star-shaped BFN and BFSN in ternary ST-OSCs as wide bandgap materials has provided device characteristics that are very competitive in the field.
Footnotes |
| † Supporting raw data for the manuscript can be accessed at the following address: https://doi.org/10.5525/gla.researchdata.1416. |
| ‡ Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/d3tc01305g |
| This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2023 |