Issue 17, 2021

Increasing the nucleation and growth barrier of a non-fullerene acceptor to achieve bicontinuous pathways in semitransparent ternary polymer solar cells

Abstract

The active layer morphology with a domain size of 10–20 nm and large interfacial area plays a significant role in governing the device power conversion efficiency (PCE) of semitransparent polymer solar cells (ST-PSCs). However, the unbalanced aggregation rate of a polymer donor and a near infrared non-fullerene acceptor led to a large phase separation domain. In order to inhibit the intense aggregation of a non-fullerene acceptor, a third component which increases the nucleation and growth barrier of the non-fullerene acceptor can be added to balance aggregation leading to a suitable domain size of donors and acceptors. In order to verify our idea, PTB7-Th and non-fullerene acceptor IEICO-4F were selected as a model system. IEICO-4F tends to form strong aggregation due to its planar conformation. In order to suppress the intense aggregation, an amorphous molecule NCBDT-4Cl which has good miscibility with IEICO-4F is added to increase the nucleation barrier of IEICO-4F because NCBDT-4Cl can be dispersed evenly in the IEICO-4F phase. In situ UV-vis absorption spectra were recorded to monitor the nucleation and growth process of IEICO-4F during the drying process. The results show that the growth time of IEICO-4F is reduced to 45 s from 122 s by incorporating 20 wt% NCBDT-4Cl, resulting in reduced aggregation of IEICO-4F. The small IEICO-4F aggregates disperse in the PTB7-Th matrix and form refined bicontinuous pathways. The optimized ternary ST-PSCs achieve a PCE of 10.31% with an average visible transmittance (AVT) of 20.6%.

Graphical abstract: Increasing the nucleation and growth barrier of a non-fullerene acceptor to achieve bicontinuous pathways in semitransparent ternary polymer solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
11 Feb 2021
Accepted
13 Mar 2021
First published
15 Mar 2021

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2021,9, 5713-5722

Increasing the nucleation and growth barrier of a non-fullerene acceptor to achieve bicontinuous pathways in semitransparent ternary polymer solar cells

Y. Liu, Y. Yan, Q. Zhang, J. Zhang, X. Yu and Y. Han, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2021, 9, 5713 DOI: 10.1039/D1TC00691F

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