Block copolymer compatibilizer for efficient and stable nonfullerene organic solar cells

Bin Li, Qilin Zhang, Siying Li, Xue Yang, Fan Yang, Yuxin Kong, Yuxiang Li, Ziang Wu, Weichao Zhang, Qian Zhao, Yuan Zhang, Han Young Woo, Jianyu Yuan, Wanli Ma

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

High-efficiency nonfullerene organic solar cells with long-term stability is crucial for future commercialization in the field of organic photovoltaics. Herein, we designed and synthesized a block copolymer, namely PM6-b-PTY6, containing both donor PM6 and Y6 segments in the polymer backbone. We then first demonstrated that the use of such block copolymer as a compatibilizer in high-efficiency PM6:Y6 based benchmark nonfullerene solar cells, simultaneously enhancing their power conversion efficiency and long-term stability. Detailed experimental results reveal that the addition of PM6-b-PTY6 into PM6:Y6 blend can effectively optimize carrier dynamic process, enhance donor–acceptor miscibility, and stabilize the blend morphology. Additionally, this strategy shows similar function when applied to other system like D18-Cl:Y6. As a result, enhanced efficiencies of 16.48% and 17.55% for PM6:Y6 and D18-Cl:Y6 solar cell are achieved, respectively. More importantly, the inverted PM6:Y6 devices exhibit improved stability, retaining 0.81 and 0.86 of the initial efficiency after 550 h aging under ambient and thermal stress, respectively. These results indicate that the compatible block copolymer could provide a fresh strategy to design more efficient nonfullerene organic solar cells.

Original languageEnglish
Article number135543
JournalChemical Engineering Journal
Volume438
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022 Jun 15

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2019YFE0108600), Excellent Youth Funding of Jiangsu Province (No. BK20211598), National Natural Science of China (No. 52073198, and 22161142003), “111” project, the China Postdoctoral Science (Grant No. 2021T140495), Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology, Soochow University. Y. Li thanks the Outstanding Youth Science and Technology of Xi’an University of Science and Technology (No. 2019YQ3-03) for financial support. H.Y.W. acknowledges the financial support from the National Research of Korea (No. 2020M3H4A3081814, and 2016M1A2A2940911).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier B.V.

Keywords

  • Block copolymer
  • Morphology
  • Nonfullerene solar cells
  • Solid additive
  • Stability

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Chemistry(all)
  • Environmental Chemistry
  • Chemical Engineering(all)
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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