Internal nanoscale architecture and charge carrier dynamics of wide bandgap non-fullerene bulk heterojunction active layers in organic solar cells

Abstract

Bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells have gained increasing attention in the past few years. In this work, active layers of a wide-bandgap polymer donor with benzodithiophene units PBDB-T-2F and a non-fullerene small molecule acceptor IT-M are assembled into photovoltaic devices with different amounts of solvent additive 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO). The influence of DIO on the nanoscale film morphology and crystalline structure as well as the charge carrier dynamics of the active layers are investigated by combining grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GISAXS), grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS), X-ray reflectivity (XRR), UV-visible (UV-vis) absorption spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), time-resolved photoluminescence (TRPL) and space charge limited current measurements, which are correlated with the corresponding performance of the solar cells. At 0.5 vol% DIO addition, the wide-bandgap non-fullerene organic solar cells show the best performance due to high open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current resulting from an improved charge carrier management due to the optimal inner nanoscale morphology of the active layers in terms of surface enrichment, crystallinity and crystalline orientation.