Alkenyl Carboxylic Acid: Engineering the Nanomorphology in Polymer–Polymer Solar Cells as Solvent Additive

Zhang, Yannan; Yuan, Jianyu; Sun, Jianxia; Ding, Guanqun; Han, Lu; Ling, Xufeng; Ma, Wanli

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b02075

Cited by 15 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…We also investigated their device stability under continuous heating at 80 °C over 70 d. It is worth noting that residual additive 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO) within the film has been implicated as the cause of slow changes in morphology over time, which impact device performance and stability. [32][33][34] Thus we fabricated solar cell devices without using DIO to exclude the complication of additive. The resultant devices still exhibited comparable PCEs compared to the optimal devices using additive, [13] which makes it simpler to focus on the effect of blend ratio on the device stability under long-time thermal stress.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this report, we compared the device performance of nonfullerene solar cells utilizing aforementioned polymeric and molecular acceptors with a wide range of blend ratios. We also investigated their device stability under continuous heating at 80 °C over 70 d. It is worth noting that residual additive 1,8‐diiodooctane (DIO) within the film has been implicated as the cause of slow changes in morphology over time, which impact device performance and stability . Thus we fabricated solar cell devices without using DIO to exclude the complication of additive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Thermally Stable All‐Polymer Solar Cells with High Tolerance on Blend Ratios

Zhang

Ford

et al. 2018

Advanced Energy Materials

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173

178

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comprised of a conjugated polymer as the electron donor and a fullerene derivative as the electron acceptor. [2,3] Conventional fullerene acceptors like [6,6]-phenyl-C61 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) may be unfavorable for practical application, due to the inefficient absorption in visible and near-infrared (IR) regions, fixed molecular structure, complex purification process, and other complications well-documented in the literature. [4][5][6][7][8] In addition, the morphology of polymer-fullerene blends is very sensitive to thermal annealing, solvent additive, film thickness, and especially D:A ratio, resulting in significantly different device performance. [9][10][11] Recently, people have shown that the integration of either polymeric or molecular acceptor into photovoltaic devices would be advantageous. The chemical structures of nonfullerene acceptor can be easily adjusted to tune their energy levels, and the conjugated molecule or polymer acceptor demonstrates enhanced absorption at long wavelengths relative to fullerenes. [12] Thus nonfullerene photovoltaics can have improved harvest of solar radiation, enhanced thermal and mechanical stability, and reduced open-circuit voltage loss. [13] To date, solution-processed nonfullerene solar cells based on polymer-polymer (all-polymer) and polymer-small molecule blend have achieved power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 10% and 13%, respectively. [14][15][16][17][18][19] Exciton dissociation and charge transport are at the core of organic photovoltaics, which is strongly affected by the BHJ blend morphology. [20][21][22][23] In fullerene-based systems, the morphology of thin films is critical to the device performance and has been extensively studied. [24] How the blend morphology of nonfullerene blend affects device efficiency and stability is of growing interest as the PCEs of many nonfullerene solar cells now exceed the best fullerene devices. It is well known that the morphology has been largely influenced by the D:A blend ratio. Early studies on fullerene-based devices observed a drastic change in film morphology when fabricating the devices with increased acceptor content. [25][26][27][28] However, for nonfullerene solar cells, recent efforts mainly focus on materials synthesis and device optimization. To the best of our knowledge, systematical study on the effect of blend ratio on the device morphology, performance, and stability has not been reported, while it is of great importance to help achieve in-depth Tuning the blend composition is an essential step to optimize the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells. PCEs from devices of unoptimized donor:acceptor (D:A) weight ratio are generally significantly lower than optimized devices. Here, two high-performance organic nonfullerene BHJ blends PBDB-T:ITIC and PBDB-T:N2200 are adopted to investigate the effect of blend ratio on device performance. It is found that the PCEs of polymer-polymer (PBDB-T:N2200) blend are more tolerant to composition changes, relati...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermally Stable All‐Polymer Solar Cells with High Tolerance on Blend Ratios

Zhang

Ford

et al. 2018

Advanced Energy Materials

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173

178

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“…Nonhalogenated solvents are discussed in Section . The molecular structures of some nonhalogenated additives are shown in Figure 23 …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Morphology Control in Organic Solar Cells

Zhao

Wang

Zhan

2018

Advanced Energy Materials

501

394

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the working mechanism includes four key steps (as shown in Figure 1): (1) light absorption and Frenkel exciton generation; (2) exciton diffusion to the D/A interface; (3) exciton dissociation into free charge carrier; (4) charge transport and collection. Each step is very important and could become a bottleneck leading to an inferior performance of OSCs. The second and forth steps are dominated by the morphology of the active layer. Since the Frenkel excitons are tightly bounded by Coulombic force, the lifetime of exciton is limited and its diffusion length is only 5-14 nm. [8][9][10] As a result, the domain size should be confined in 5-30 nm to ensure excitons reach D/A interfacial zone and then dissociate into free charge carriers efficiently. On the other hand, high domain purity and fine bicontinuous interpenetrating network nanostructure are also necessary to enable the charge carriers transfer to the electrodes quickly and reduce the bimolecular recombination.The PCE is the overall parameter to evaluate the performance of OSCs, which is the product of open-circuit voltage (V OC ), short-circuit current density (J SC ), and fill factor (FF). Since V OC is proportional to the difference of the highest occupied molecular orbital energy level of the donor and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy level of the acceptor, [11][12][13] the V OC is mainly determined by the donor and acceptor materials. However, V OC is also related to the morphology of the active layer, such as D/A interface area, microstructure, crystallinity and so on. [14] The J SC is dominated by the whole photoelectric conversion process, namely exciton generation, diffusion and dissociation, and charge transport and collection. Among them, efficient exciton diffusion and dissociation, and charge transport strongly depend on the fine morphology of the active layer. [15] FF represents the diode characteristic of the device and is bound up with the charge transport and recombination in the active layer. The fast charge transport and low charge recombination also mainly depend on the morphology, such as crystallinity, molecular orientation, domain purity, vertical phase separation, etc. [15] Therefore, the ideal morphology of the active layer is the crucial factor to achieve high-performance OSCs.The nanomorphology of the active layer is affected by various factors, such as the D/A properties (solubility, crystallinity, miscibility, etc.), film processing, device configuration, and so on. There are only several successful as-cast films affording satisfactory morphology and performance [16][17][18] since it is very hard to obtain ideal morphology and good performance just depending energy and present some advantages, such as low cost, light weight, flexibility, semitransparency, and roll-to-roll large-area fabrication. Due to the short diffusion length of exciton (≈10 nm) in organic semiconductor materials, the ideal nanoscale phase separation in the active layer is one of the crucial factors for achieving efficient exciton dissociation an...

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“…Recent studies reported the use of acids polymers as dopants, to access and stabilize the electrically conducting states of conducting. The acids polymers are used for replace small-molecules acids as: poly(acrylic acid), poly(styrenesulfonate) (PSS), and poly(2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid), (2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1-propanesulfonic acid) (PAAMPSA), because its chemical nature, helps to stabilize the conduction of the polymers, in conclusion, the presence of an excess of carboxylic acid in the chemical structure promotes good dispersion, thus stabilizing the electric nature of the doped polymers [60].…”

Section: Polymermentioning

confidence: 99%

Applications of Carboxylic Acids in Organic Synthesis, Nanotechnology and Polymers

Sáenz‐Galindo¹,

López²,

Duran³

et al. 2018

Carboxylic Acid - Key Role in Life Sciences

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Carboxylic acids are versatile organic compounds. In this chapter is presented a current overview of the use of carboxylic acids in a different area as organic synthesis, nanotechnology, and polymers. The application carboxylic acids in these areas are: obtaining of small molecules, macromolecules, synthetic or natural polymers, modification surface of nanoparticles metallic, modification surface of nanostructure such as carbon nanotubes and graphene, nanomaterials, medical field, pharmacy, etc. Carboxylic acids can be natural and synthetic, can be extracted or synthesized, presented chemical structure highly polar, active in organic reactions, as substitution, elimination, oxidation, coupling, etc. In nanotechnology, the use of acid carboxylic as surface modifiers to promote the dispersion and incorporation of metallic nanoparticles or carbon nanostructure, in the area of polymer carboxylic acids present applications such monomers, additives, catalysts, etc. The purpose of this chapter is to emphasize the importance of carboxylic acids in different areas, highlighting the area of organic synthesis, nanotechnology and polymers and its applications.

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Alkenyl Carboxylic Acid: Engineering the Nanomorphology in Polymer–Polymer Solar Cells as Solvent Additive

Cited by 15 publications

References 64 publications

Thermally Stable All‐Polymer Solar Cells with High Tolerance on Blend Ratios

Thermally Stable All‐Polymer Solar Cells with High Tolerance on Blend Ratios

Morphology Control in Organic Solar Cells

Applications of Carboxylic Acids in Organic Synthesis, Nanotechnology and Polymers

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