Recent Advances in Bulk Heterojunction Polymer Solar Cells

Non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) are currently a major focus of research in the development of bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells (OSCs). In contrast to the widely used fullerene acceptors (FAs), the optical properties and electronic energy levels of NFAs can be readily tuned. NFA-based OSCs can also achieve greater thermal stability and photochemical stability, as well as longer device lifetimes, than their FA-based counterparts. Historically, the performance of NFA OSCs has lagged behind that of fullerene devices. However, recent developments have led to a rapid increase in power conversion efficiencies for NFA OSCs, with values now exceeding 13%, demonstrating the viability of using NFAs to replace FAs in next-generation high-performance OSCs. This Review discusses the important work that has led to this remarkable progress, focusing on the two most promising NFA classes to date: rylene diimide-based materials and materials based on fused aromatic cores with strong electron-accepting end groups. The key structure–property relationships, donor–acceptor matching criteria and aspects of device physics are discussed. Finally, we consider the remaining challenges and promising future directions for the NFA OSCs field. Non-fullerene acceptors have been widely used in organic solar cells over the past 3 years. This Review focuses on the two most promising classes of non-fullerene acceptors — rylene diimide-based materials and fused-ring electron acceptors — and discusses structure–property relationships, donor– acceptor matching criteria and device physics, as well as future research directions for the field.

Non-fullerene acceptors for organic solar cells

The bulk-heterojunction blend of an electron donor and an electron acceptor material is the key component in a solution-processed organic photovoltaic device. In the past decades, a p-type conjugated polymer and an n-type fullerene derivative have been the most commonly used electron donor and electron acceptor, respectively. While most advances of the device performance come from the design of new polymer donors, fullerene derivatives have almost been exclusively used as electron acceptors in organic photovoltaics. Recently, nonfullerene acceptor materials, particularly small molecules and oligomers, have emerged as a promising alternative to replace fullerene derivatives. Compared to fullerenes, these new acceptors are generally synthesized from diversified, low-cost routes based on building block materials with extraordinary chemical, thermal, and photostability. The facile functionalization of these molecules affords excellent tunability to their optoelectronic and electrochemical properties. Within t...

Nonfullerene Acceptor Molecules for Bulk Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells

Fast and efficient charge separation is essential to achieve high power conversion efficiency in organic solar cells (OSCs). In state-of-the-art OSCs, this is usually achieved by a significant driv ...

Fast charge separation in a non-fullerene organic solar cell with a small driving force

ConspectusThe active layer in a solution processed organic photovoltaic device comprises a light absorbing electron donor semiconductor, typically a polymer, and an electron accepting fullerene acceptor. Although there has been huge effort targeted to optimize the absorbing, energetic, and transport properties of the donor material, fullerenes remain as the exclusive electron acceptor in all high performance devices. Very recently, some new non-fullerene acceptors have been demonstrated to outperform fullerenes in comparative devices. This Account describes this progress, discussing molecular design considerations and the structure–property relationships that are emerging.The motivation to replace fullerene acceptors stems from their synthetic inflexibility, leading to constraints in manipulating frontier energy levels, as well as poor absorption in the solar spectrum range, and an inherent tendency to undergo postfabrication crystallization, resulting in device instability. New acceptors have to address ...

Non-Fullerene Electron Acceptors for Use in Organic Solar Cells

Prof. L. Huo, T. Liu, Prof. X. Sun, Y. Cai, Prof. Y. Sun Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Smart Interfacial Science and Technology of Ministry of Education Beijing Key Laboratory of Bio-Inspired Energy Materials and Devices School of Chemistry and Environment Beihang University Beijing 100191 , P. R. China E-mail: sunym@buaa.edu.cn Prof. L. Huo, T. Liu, Prof. X. Sun, Y. Cai, Prof. A. J. Heeger, Prof. Y. Sun Heeger Beijing Research and Development Center International Research Institute for Multidisciplinary Science Beihang University Beijing 100191 , P. R. China

Single‐Junction Organic Solar Cells Based on a Novel Wide‐Bandgap Polymer with Efficiency of 9.7%

A novel perylene bisimide (PBI) dimer-based acceptor material, SdiPBI-S, was developed. Conventional bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells based on SdiPBI-S and the wide-band-gap polymer PDBT-T1 show a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.16% with a high open-circuit voltage of 0.90 V, a high short-circuit current density of 11.98 mA/cm2, and an impressive fill factor of 66.1%. Favorable phase separation and balanced carrier mobilites in the BHJ films account for the high photovoltaic performance. The results demonstrate that fine-tuning of PBI-based materials is a promising way to improve the PCEs of non-fullerene BHJ organic solar cells.

Non-Fullerene-Acceptor-Based Bulk-Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells with Efficiency over 7%

The ternary strategy, introducing a third component into a binary blend, opens a simple and promising avenue to improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells (OSCs). The judicious selection of an appropriate third component, without sacrificing the photocurrent and voltage output of the OSC, is of significant importance in ternary devices. Herein, highly efficient OSCs fabricated using a ternary approach are demonstrated, wherein a novel non-fullerene acceptor L8-BO-F is designed and incorporated into the PM6:BTP-eC9 blend. The three components show complementary absorption spectra and cascade energy alignment. L8-BO-F and BTP-eC9 are found to form a homogeneous mixed phase, which improves the molecular packing of both the donor and acceptor materials, and optimizes the ternary blend morphology. Moreover, the addition of L8-BO-F into the binary blend suppresses the non-radiative recombination, thus leading to a reduced voltage loss. Consequently, concurrent increases in open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, and fill factor are realized, resulting in an unprecedented PCE of 18.66% (certified value of 18.2%), which represents the highest efficiency values reported for both single-junction and tandem OSCs so far.

A Well-Mixed Phase Formed by Two Compatible Non-Fullerene Acceptors Enables Ternary Organic Solar Cells with Efficiency over 18.6%

The past decade has witnessed significant advances in the field of organic solar cells (OSCs). Ongoing improvements in the power conversion efficiency of OSCs have been achieved, which were mainly attributed to the design and synthesis of novel conjugated polymers with different architectures and functional moieties. Among various conjugated polymers, the development of wide-bandgap (WBG) polymers has received less attention than that of low-bandgap and medium-bandgap polymers. Here, we briefly summarize recent advances in WBG polymers and their applications in organic photovoltaic (PV) devices, such as tandem, ternary, and non-fullerene solar cells. Addtionally, we also dissuss the application of high open-circuit voltage tandem solar cells in PV-driven electrochemical water dissociation. We mainly focus on the molecular design strategies, the structure-property correlations, and the photovoltaic performance of these WBG polymers. Finally, we extract empirical regularities and provide invigorating perspectives on the future development of WBG photovoltaic materials.

Recent Advances in Wide-Bandgap Photovoltaic Polymers

Ternary organic solar cells are promising alternatives to the binary counterpart due to their potential in achieving high performance. Although a growing number of ternary organic solar cells are recently reported, less effort is devoted to morphology control. Here, ternary organic solar cells are fabricated using a wide-bandgap polymer PBT1-C as the donor, a crystalline fused-ring electron acceptor ITIC-2Cl, and an amorphous fullerene derivative indene-C60 bisadduct (ICBA) as the acceptor. It is found that ICBA can disturb π-π interactions of the crystalline ITIC-2Cl molecules in ternary blends and then help to form more uniform morphology. As a result, incorporation of 20% ICBA in the PBT1-C:ITIC-2Cl blend enables efficient charge dissociation, negligible bimolecular recombination, and balanced charge carrier mobilities. An impressive power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 13.4%, with a high fill factor (FF) of 76.8%, is eventually achieved, which represents one of the highest PCEs reported so far for organic solar cells. The results manifest that the adoption of amorphous fullerene acceptor is an effective approach to optimizing the ternary blend morphology and thereby increases the solar cell performance.

/pdf/morphology-control-enables-efficient-ternary-organic-solar-bokx5lzb2s.pdf

Yunhao Cai

Papers

Single‐Junction Organic Solar Cells Based on a Novel Wide‐Bandgap Polymer with Efficiency of 9.7%

Non-Fullerene-Acceptor-Based Bulk-Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells with Efficiency over 7%

A Well-Mixed Phase Formed by Two Compatible Non-Fullerene Acceptors Enables Ternary Organic Solar Cells with Efficiency over 18.6%

Recent Advances in Wide-Bandgap Photovoltaic Polymers

Morphology Control Enables Efficient Ternary Organic Solar Cells.