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Molecular dispersion enhances photovoltaic efficiency and thermal stability in quasi-bilayer organic solar cells

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Abstract

In comparison to widely adopted bulk heterojunction (BHJ) structures for organic solar cells (OSC), exploiting the sequential deposition to form planar heterojunction (PHJ) structures enables to realize the favorable vertical phase separation to facilitate charge extraction and reduce charge recombination in OSCs. However, effective tunings on the power conversion efficiency (PCE) in PHJ-OSCs are still restrained by the currently available methods. Based on a polymeric donor PBDBT-2F (PBDBT=Poly [[4,8-bis [5-(2-ethylhexyl)-4-fluoro-2-thienyl]benzo [1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-2,6-diyl]-2,5-thiophenediyl [5,7-bis (2-ethylhexyl)-4,8-dioxo-4H,8H-benzo [1,2-c:4,5-c′]dithiophene-1,3-diyl]-2,5-thiophenediyl]) and a non-fullerene (NF) acceptor Y6, we proposed a strategy to improve the properties of photovoltaic performances in PHJ-based OSCs through dilute dispersions of the PBDBT-2F donor into the acceptor-dominant phase with the sequential film deposition. With the control of donor dispersions, the charge transport balance in the PHJ-OSCs is improved, leading to the expedited photocarrier sweep-out with reduced bimolecular charge recombination. As a result, a PCE of 15.4% is achieved in the PHJ-OSCs. Importantly, the PHJ solar cells with donor dispersions exhibit better thermal stability than corresponding BHJ devices, which is related to the better film morphology robustness and less affected charge sweep-out during the thermal aging.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21875012, 21674006, 21773045), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0206600), the Chinese Academy of Science (100 Top Young Scientists Program), and the program of “Academic Excellence Foundation of BUAA for PhD Students”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry, Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Biomedical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Xuning Zhang, Dongyang Zhang, Guangbao Wu, Jiyu Zhou, Xing Li & Yuan Zhang

  2. CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, 100190, China

    Xuning Zhang, Yanxun Li, Hong Zhang,  Saud-uz-Zafar, Jianqi Zhang, Zhixiang Wei & Huiqiong Zhou

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  1. Xuning Zhang
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  2. Yanxun Li
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Correspondence to Yuan Zhang.

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Zhang, X., Li, Y., Zhang, D. et al. Molecular dispersion enhances photovoltaic efficiency and thermal stability in quasi-bilayer organic solar cells. Sci. China Chem. 64, 116–126 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-020-9837-y

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