Over 14% efficiency all-polymer solar cells enabled by a low bandgap polymer acceptor with low energy loss and efficient charge separation

Abstract

Obtaining both high open-circuit voltage (V_oc) and short-circuit current density (J_sc) has been a major challenge for efficient all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs). Herein, we developed a polymer acceptor PF5-Y5 with excellent optical absorption capability (onset extending to ∼880 nm and maximum absorption coefficient exceeding 10⁵ cm⁻¹ in a film), high electron mobility (3.18 × 10⁻³ cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹) and high LUMO level (−3.84 eV) to address such a challenge. As a result, the PBDB-T:PF5-Y5-based all-PSCs achieved a high power conversion efficiency of up to 14.45% with both a high V_oc (0.946 V) and a high J_sc (20.65 mA cm⁻²), due to the high and broad absorption coverage, small energy loss (0.57 eV) and efficient charge separation and transport in the device, which are among the best values in the all-PSC field. In addition, the all-PSC shows a ∼15% improvement in PCE compared to its counterpart small molecule acceptor (Y5)-based device. Our results suggest that PF5-Y5 is a very promising polymer acceptor candidate for applications in efficient all-PSCs.