Reducing the efficiency–stability–cost gap of organic photovoltaics with highly efficient and stable small molecule acceptor ternary solar cells

Baran D, Ashraf RS, Hanifi DA, Abdelsamie M, Gasparini N, Röhr JA, Holliday S, Wadsworth A, Lockett S, Neophytou M, Emmott CJM, Nelson J, Brabec C, Amassian A, Salleo A, Kirchartz T, Durrant JR, McCulloch I (2016)

Publication Language: English

Publication Status: Published

Publication Type: Journal article, Original article

Publication year: 2016

Journal

Nature Materials

Publisher: Nature Publishing Group

Book Volume: 16

Pages Range: 363-369

Journal Issue: 3

DOI: 10.1038/nmat4797

Abstract

Technological deployment of organic photovoltaic modules requires improvements in device light-conversion efficiency and stability while keeping material costs low. Here we demonstrate highly efficient and stable solar cells using a ternary approach, wherein two non-fullerene acceptors are combined with both a scalable and affordable donor polymer, poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT), and a high-efficiency, low-bandgap polymer in a single-layer bulk-heterojunction device. The addition of a strongly absorbing small molecule acceptor into a P3HT-based non-fullerene blend increases the device efficiency up to 7.7 ± 0.1% without any solvent additives. The improvement is assigned to changes in microstructure that reduce charge recombination and increase the photovoltage, and to improved light harvesting across the visible region. The stability of P3HT-based devices in ambient conditions is also significantly improved relative to polymer:fullerene devices. Combined with a low-bandgap donor polymer (PBDTTT-EFT, also known as PCE10), the two mixed acceptors also lead to solar cells with 11.0 ± 0.4% efficiency and a high open-circuit voltage of 1.03 ± 0.01 V.

Authors with CRIS profile

Nicola Gasparini Institute Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET) Christoph Brabec Institute Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET)

Involved external institutions

Stanford University US United States (USA) (US)

How to cite

APA:

Baran, D., Ashraf, R.S., Hanifi, D.A., Abdelsamie, M., Gasparini, N., Röhr, J.A.,... McCulloch, I. (2016). Reducing the efficiency–stability–cost gap of organic photovoltaics with highly efficient and stable small molecule acceptor ternary solar cells. Nature Materials, 16(3), 363-369. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmat4797

MLA:

Baran, Derya, et al. "Reducing the efficiency–stability–cost gap of organic photovoltaics with highly efficient and stable small molecule acceptor ternary solar cells." Nature Materials 16.3 (2016): 363-369.

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