Issue 45, 2017

Boosting the photovoltaic thermal stability of fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells through charge transfer interactions

Abstract

Fullerene-based bulk heterojunction organic solar cells (BHJ-OSCs) represent one of the current state-of-the-art organic solar cells. Nonetheless, most of these devices still suffer from adverse performance degradation due to thermally induced morphology changes of active layers. We herein demonstrate that the photovoltaic performance stability of BHJ-OSCs can be profoundly enhanced with an appositely functionalized 9-fluorenylidene malononitrile. The latter, through charge transfer (CT) interactions with a donor polymer, enables the formation of a “frozen” 3-dimensional mesh-like donor polymer matrix, which effectively restrains free movement of embedded fullerene molecules and suppresses their otherwise uncontrolled aggregation. 9-Fluorenylidene malononitrile derivatives with multiple CT interaction sites are particularly effective as preservation of a power conversion efficiency of over 90% under severe thermal stress has been accomplished. The generality of this novel strategy has been affirmed with several common donor polymers, manifesting it to be hitherto the most efficient approach to stabilized fullerene-based BHJ-OSCs.

Graphical abstract: Boosting the photovoltaic thermal stability of fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells through charge transfer interactions

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Jul 2017
Accepted
06 Oct 2017
First published
07 Oct 2017

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017,5, 23662-23670

Boosting the photovoltaic thermal stability of fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells through charge transfer interactions

C. H. Yi Ho, H. Cao, Y. Lu, T. Lau, S. H. Cheung, H. Li, H. Yin, K. L. Chiu, L. Ma, Y. Cheng, S. Tsang, X. Lu, S. K. So and B. S. Ong, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2017, 5, 23662 DOI: 10.1039/C7TA06530B

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