All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) offer unique morphology stability for the application as flexible devices, but the lack of high-performance polymer acceptors limits their power conversion efficiency (PCE) to a value lower than those of the PSCs based on fullerene derivative or organic small molecule acceptors. We herein demonstrate a strategy to synthesize a high-performance polymer acceptor PZ1 by embedding an acceptor-donor-acceptor building block into the polymer main chain. PZ1 possesses broad absorption with a low band gap of 1.55 eV and high absorption coefficient (1.3×10 cm ). The all-PSCs with the wide-band-gap polymer PBDB-T as donor and PZ1 as acceptor showed a record-high PCE of 9.19 % for the all-PSCs. The success of our polymerization strategy can provide a new way to develop efficient polymer acceptors for all-PSCs.

Photoinduced force microscopy resolves nanometer-scale topology with chemical recognition based on material absorption.

We synthesized two wide bandgap A−D−A structured p-type organic semiconductor (p-OS) small molecules with weak electron-withdrawing ester end groups: SM1 with cyano group (CN) on the ester group and SM2 without the CN group. SM1 showed stronger absorption, lower-lying HOMO energy level, and higher hole mobility in comparison with that of SM2 without the CN groups. The all-smallmolecule organic solar cell (SM-OSC) with SM1 as donor and a narrow bandgap n-OS IDIC as acceptor demonstrated a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 10.11% and a high fill factor (FF) of 73.55%, while the PCE of the device based on SM2:IDIC is only 5.32% under the same device fabrication condition. The PCE of 10.11% and FF of 73.55% for the SM1-based device are the highest values for the nonfullerene SM-OSCs reported in the literature so far. The results indicate that the cyano substitution in SM1 plays an important role in improving the photovoltaic performance of the p-OS donors in the nonfullerene SM-OSC. In addition, the photoinduced force microscopy (PiFM) was first used in OSCs to characterize the morphology of its donor/acceptor blend active layer.

Doping-induced solubility control is a patterning technique for semiconducting polymers, which utilizes the reduction in polymer solubility upon p-type doping to provide direct, optical control of film topography and doping level. In situ direct-write patterning and imaging are demonstrated, revealing sub-diffraction-limited topographic features. Photoinduced force microscopy shows that doping level can be optically modulated with similar resolution.

Rapid nanoscale imaging of the bulk heterojunction layer in organic solar cells is essential to the continued development of high-performance devices. Unfortunately, commonly used imaging techniques such as tunneling electron microscopy (TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) suffer from significant drawbacks. For instance, assuming domain identity from phase contrast or topographical features can lead to inaccurate morphological conclusions. Here we demonstrate a technique known as photo-induced force microscopy (PiFM) for imaging organic solar cell bulk heterojunctions with nanoscale chemical specificity. PiFM is a relatively recent scanning probe microscopy technique that combines an AFM tip with a tunable infrared laser to induce a dipole for chemical imaging. Coupling the nanometer resolution of AFM with the chemical specificity of a tuned IR laser, we are able to spatially map the donor and acceptor domains in a model all-polymer bulk heterojunction with resolution approaching 10 nm. Domain size from PiFM images is compared to bulk-averaged results from resonant soft X-ray scattering, indicating excellent quantitative agreement. Further, we demonstrate that in our all-polymer system, the AFM topography, AFM phase, and PiFM show poor correlation, highlighting the need to move beyond standard AFM for morphology characterization of bulk heterojunctions.