Morphology Optimization via Side Chain Engineering Enables All Polymer Solar Cells with Excellent Fill Factor and Stability

Liu X, Zhang C, Duan C, Li M, Hu Z, Wang J, Liu F, Li N, Brabec C, Janssen RAJ, Bazan GC, Huang F, Cao Y (2018)

Publication Language: English

Publication Status: Published

Publication Type: Journal article, Original article

Publication year: 2018

Journal

Journal of the American Chemical Society American Chemical Society

Publisher: AMER CHEMICAL SOC

Book Volume: 140

Pages Range: 8934-8943

Journal Issue: 28

DOI: 10.1021/jacs.8b05038

Abstract

All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) composed of conjugated polymers as both donor and acceptor components in bulk heterojunction photoactive layers have attracted increasing attention. However, it is a big challenge to achieve optimal morphology in polymer:polymer blends. In response, we report herein a new strategy to adjust the nanoscale organization for all-PSCs. Specifically, side chain engineering of the well-known naphthalene diimide (NDI)-based polymer N2200 is modulated by introducing a fraction of linear oligoethylene oxide (OE) side chains to replace branched alkyl chains on the NDI units and by synthesizing a series of NDI-based polymer acceptors NOEx, where x is the percentage of OE chain substituted NDI units relative to total NDI units. Compared to the reference polymer NOE0, OE-chain-containing polymer NOE10 offers a much higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.1% with a record high fill factor (FF) of 0.75 in all-PSCs. Moreover, the NOE10-based all-PSC exhibits excellent long-term and thermal stabilities with >97% of the initial PCE being maintained after 300 h of aging at 65 degrees C. This work demonstrates an effective morphology optimization strategy to achieve highly efficient and stable all-PSCs and shows the excellent potential of NOE10 as an alternative to commercially available acceptor polymers N2200.

Authors with CRIS profile

Chaohong Zhang Institute Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET) (i-MEET) Ning Li Institute Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET) (i-MEET) Christoph Brabec Institute Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET) (i-MEET)

Involved external institutions

South China University of Technology (SCUT) / 华南理工大学 CN China (CN) University of California US United States (USA) (US) Eindhoven University of Technology / Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TU/e) NL Netherlands (NL) Shanghai Jiao Tong University / 上海交通大学 CN China (CN)

How to cite

APA:

Liu, X., Zhang, C., Duan, C., Li, M., Hu, Z., Wang, J.,... Cao, Y. (2018). Morphology Optimization via Side Chain Engineering Enables All Polymer Solar Cells with Excellent Fill Factor and Stability. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 140(28), 8934-8943. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.8b05038

MLA:

Liu, Xi, et al. "Morphology Optimization via Side Chain Engineering Enables All Polymer Solar Cells with Excellent Fill Factor and Stability." Journal of the American Chemical Society 140.28 (2018): 8934-8943.

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