The vertical composition distribution and crystallinity of photoactive layers are considered to have critical roles in photovoltaic performance. In this concise contribution, the layer-by-layer (LBL) solution process is used to fabricate efficient polymer solar cells. The results show that the vertical composition distribution can be finely regulated via employing solvent additive 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO). The favorable vertical component distribution in tandem with improved crystallinity induced by DIO contributes to the efficient exciton dissociation, charge transportation and extraction, and limited charge recombination loss. Therefore, the optimized LBL devices yield an efficiency of 16.5%, which is higher than that of the control bulk heterojunction solar cells with an efficiency of 15.8%. Importantly, the ternary solar cells based on PM6/ Y6:PC 71 BM LBL active layers demonstrate a promising efficiency of >17%, which is the record efficiency for LBL solar devices reported to date. These findings make clear that the solvent additive-assisted LBL solution process has broader implications for the further optimization of solar cells.

All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) are proven to possess outstanding thermal and mechanical stabilities. However, concurrently achieving appropriate phase-separated pattern, efficient charge transportation, and adequate charge transfer between donor and acceptor components is still a challenge, and thus, only a few polymer−polymer bulk heterojunction (BHJ) blends have yielded BHJ device power conversion efficiency (PCE) values of >8%. Generally, polymer backbone substitutions may have a direct influence on the device performance. Thus, this report examines a set of wide bandgap polymer donor analogues composed of thienothiophene (TT) or thiazolothiazole (TTz) motif, and their all-PSC device performance with N2200. Results show that all-PSCs based on the imine-substituted derivative PBDT-TTz exhibit PCE values as high as 8.4%, which largely outperform the analogue PBDT-TT-based ones with PCEs of only 0.7%. This work reveals that the imine substitution in polymer backbones of PBDT-TTz not only increases the ionization potential (IP) and electron affinity (EA), narrows the optical gap (E opt ), but also has significantly impacts on the BHJ film morphologies. PBDT-TTz:N2200 BHJ blends present better miscibility, suppressed phase separation, much stronger crystallinity, and face-on ordering, which contribute to efficient exciton dissociation, charge transportation, and therefore, high-efficiency in all-PSCs. This study demonstrates that the iminesubstituted polymers composed of TTz motif, which can be easily synthesized through a facile two-step procedure, are a promising class of wide-bandgap polymer donors for efficient all-PSCs.

The vertical composition distribution of a bulk heterojunction (BHJ) photoactive layer is known to have dramatic effects on photovoltaic performance in polymer solar cells. However, the vertical composition distribution evolution rules of BHJ films are still elusive. In this contribution, three BHJ film systems, composed of polymer donor PBDB-T, and three different classes of acceptor (fullerene acceptor PCBM, small-molecule acceptor ITIC, and polymer acceptor N2200) are systematically investigated using neutron reflectometry to examine how donor–acceptor interaction and solvent additive impact the vertical composition distribution. Our results show that those three BHJ films possess homogeneous vertical composition distributions across the bulk of the film, while very different composition accumulations near the top and bottom surface were observed, which could be attributed to different repulsion, miscibility, and phase separation between the donor and acceptor components as approved by the measurement of the donor–acceptor Flory–Huggins interaction parameter χ. Moreover, the solvent additive 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO) can induce more distinct vertical composition distribution especially in nonfullerene acceptor-based BHJ films. Thus, higher power conversion efficiencies were achieved in inverted solar cells because of facilitated charge transport in the active layer, improved carrier collection at electrodes, and suppressed charge recombination in BHJ solar cells.

Efficient Si/organic hybrid solar cells were fabricated with dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and surfactant-doped poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): polystyrene (PEDOT:PSS). A post-treatment on PEDOT:PSS films with polar solvent was performed to increase the device performance. We found that the performance of hybrid solar cells increase with the polarity of solvent. A high conductivity of 1105 S cm − 1 of PEDOT:PSS was achieved by adopting methanol treatment, and the best efficiency of corresponding hybrid solar cells reaches 12.22%. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and RAMAN spectroscopy were utilized to conform to component changes of PEDOT:PSS films after solvent treatment. It was found that the removal of the insulator PSS from the film and the conformational changes are the determinants for the device performance enhancement. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was used to investigate the recombination resistance and capacitance of methanol-treated and untreated hybrid solar cells, indicating that methanol-treated devices had a larger recombination resistance and capacitance. Our findings bring a simple and efficient way for improving the performance of hybrid solar cell.

Incorporating solvent additives in donor and acceptor solutions has been considered as effective strategy in reaching efficient organic solar cells. As the state-of-the-art photovoltaic materials have thiophene sequences along their...