Issue 10, 2017

Morphology control enables thickness-insensitive efficient nonfullerene polymer solar cells

Abstract

Owing to the use of cost-effective materials and excellent stability, nonfullerene polymer solar cells (PSCs) have great potential for realizing large-area industrial production. In contrast to fullerene-based devices, non-fullerene PSCs have exhibited a superior photovoltaic performance with up to 12% efficiency and long-term thermal stability. Presently, one of the major factors hindering industrial production is the high sensitivity of the power conversion efficiency (PCE) to thickness variations, which can significantly affect the manufacturing yields and production costs of roll-to-roll processing. Specifically, the device fill factors and PCEs of many high-efficiency nonfullerene PSCs show a significant loss when the thickness of the active layer is over 100 nm. In order to achieve high output capabilities earlier, there is an urgent need to find a processing method to fabricate high-efficiency thick-film nonfullerene PSCs. Controlling the morphology and performance sensitivity in thick-film non-fullerene devices is a great challenge in the field. Here, we present a simple morphology optimization method via thermal annealing to fabricate highly efficient thickness-insensitive non-fullerene PSCs. After this treatment, PBDB-T/IT-M-based nonfullerene PSCs can afford an impressive PCE of up to ∼9.4% at an active layer thickness of 250 nm. In addition, the devices with an active layer thickness of 400 nm still maintain a high efficiency close to 9%. The photovoltaic properties and morphology parameters resolved from hard and soft X-ray scattering clearly indicate that thermal annealing plays a key role in improving the film thickness insensitivity for non-fullerene PSCs.

Graphical abstract: Morphology control enables thickness-insensitive efficient nonfullerene polymer solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Research Article
Submitted
28 ⵉⴱⵔ 2017
Accepted
19 ⵢⵓⵏ 2017
First published
22 ⵢⵓⵏ 2017

Mater. Chem. Front., 2017,1, 2057-2064

Morphology control enables thickness-insensitive efficient nonfullerene polymer solar cells

X. Liu, L. Ye, W. Zhao, S. Zhang, S. Li, G. M. Su, C. Wang, H. Ade and J. Hou, Mater. Chem. Front., 2017, 1, 2057 DOI: 10.1039/C7QM00182G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements