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Donor–acceptor mutually diluted heterojunctions for layer-by-layer fabrication of high-performance organic solar cells

Nature Energy volume 9, pages 208–218 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The photoactive layer of organic solar cells consists of p-type electron donors and n-type electron acceptors, which phase separate to form fine and continuous networks for charge transport. The impact of the donor–acceptor interaction on the microstructure and optoelectronics of the photoactive layer remains unclear. In this work, a tiny amount (1 wt%) of donor PM6 is added into the non-fullerene acceptor (NFA) C8-R or L8-BO (or vice versa) to form a donor (or acceptor) diluted heterojunction. The structural order is improved through dipole–dipole interaction between the donor and the acceptor owing to their opposite electronegativity. We fabricate a pseudo-bilayer heterojunction solar cell based on NFA-diluted donor (that is, donor + 1% NFA) and donor-diluted NFA (that is, NFA + 1% donor) layers: the device exhibits superior power conversion efficiencies compared with their bulk heterojunction and conventional pseudo-bilayer counterparts. We demonstrate an efficiency of 19.4% (certified 19.1%) and 17.6% for 100 and 300 nm-thick PM6 + 1% L8-BO/L8-BO + 1% PM6 solar cells, respectively.

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Fig. 1: Materials, optoelectronic properties and structural order of PM6 mediated by C8-12.
Fig. 2: Donor–acceptor mutual dilution-mediated optoelectronic properties and structural order.
Fig. 3: Photovoltaic properties of OSCs.
Fig. 4: Versatility of donor- and acceptor-diluted heterojunctions.

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All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the published article and its Supplementary Information and source data files. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52273196, 52073221 and 52203238) and the Key Research and Development Program of Hubei Province (2023BAB116). We thank Y. Sun at Beihang University and F. Gao at Linköping University for helpful discussion. We also thank beamline BL14B1 and BL16B1 at Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (China) for providing beamtime to perform GIWAXS and GISAXS measurements and L. Zhou and L. Cui at Wuhan University of Technology for XPS measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China

    Liang Wang, Chen Chen, Yiwei Fu, Chuanhang Guo, Donghui Li, Jingchao Cheng, Wei Sun, Zirui Gan, Yuandong Sun, Bojun Zhou, Chenghao Liu, Dan Liu, Wei Li & Tao Wang

  2. School of Materials and Microelectronics, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China

    Tao Wang

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Contributions

L.W. synthesized materials, performed device fabrication and collected data. C.C. and Y.F. conducted molecular dynamics simulations. J.C., C.C. and W.L. performed synchrotron X-ray measurements. W.S., Z.G., Y.S., B.Z. and C.L. conducted optoelectronic measurements. C.G. and D. Li conducted morphology characterizations. W.L. and D. Liu assisted with experimental design and data analysis. All authors were involved in results discussion. L.W., W.L. and T.W. wrote the paper with all authors commenting and revising the paper. T.W. supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Tao Wang.

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Nature Energy thanks Mariano Campooy-Quiles and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–42, Tables 1–12 and references.

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Supplementary Data 1

Mobilities behind Supplementary Tables 3, 4 and 10 and photovoltaic parameters behind Supplementary Tables 7, 8 and 12.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 3

Photovoltaic parameters and charge mobilities behind Fig. 3d–i.

Source Data Table 1

Photovoltaic parameters behind Table 1.

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Wang, L., Chen, C., Fu, Y. et al. Donor–acceptor mutually diluted heterojunctions for layer-by-layer fabrication of high-performance organic solar cells. Nat Energy 9, 208–218 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-023-01436-z

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