All‐Polymer Solar Cells: Recent Progress, Challenges, and Prospects

Wang, Gang; Melkonyan, Ferdinand S.; Facchetti, Antonio; Marks, Tobin J.

doi:10.1002/anie.201808976

Cited by 514 publications

(413 citation statements)

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“…Photoresponse up to 870 nm was observed for the DCNBT‐IDT‐based cells. More importantly, the energy loss ( E loss ) in the DCNBT‐IDT cell is only 0.53 eV, which is among the smallest values reported to date for all‐PSCs with efficiency > 8% . Note, a PCE of 8.32% achieved by polymer acceptor DCNBT‐IDT is also the highest reported value for all‐PSCs except for those attained by imide‐functionalized polymer acceptors and polymers based on ITIC derivatives, which indicates that incorporation of DCNBT into polymers paves a new avenue to develop n‐type acceptor materials and also heralds a brighter future of all‐PSCs owing to the improved optoelectronic properties of the DCNBT polymers.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 84%

“…Organic solar cells (OSCs) have achieved long‐term and consistent advance with remarkable power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of greater than 16% obtained in nonfullerene solar cells, recently . Among various types of OSCs, all‐polymer solar cells (all‐PSCs) consisting of polymers as both donor and acceptor semiconductors show pronounced advantages over other types of OSCs in terms of mechanical flexibility and remarkable device stability . However, the PCEs of all‐PSCs still lag behind those of OSCs based on fullerenes and nonfullerene small molecule acceptors, which is mainly due to the lack of high‐performance n‐type polymer semiconductors.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

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A Narrow‐Bandgap n‐Type Polymer Semiconductor Enabling Efficient All‐Polymer Solar Cells

et al. 2019

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Currently, n‐type acceptors in high‐performance all‐polymer solar cells (all‐PSCs) are dominated by imide‐functionalized polymers, which typically show medium bandgap. Herein, a novel narrow‐bandgap polymer, poly(5,6‐dicyano‐2,1,3‐benzothiadiazole‐alt‐indacenodithiophene) (DCNBT‐IDT), based on dicyanobenzothiadiazole without an imide group is reported. The strong electron‐withdrawing cyano functionality enables DCNBT‐IDT with n‐type character and, more importantly, alleviates the steric hindrance associated with typical imide groups. Compared to the benchmark poly(naphthalene diimide‐alt‐bithiophene) (N2200), DCNBT‐IDT shows a narrower bandgap (1.43 eV) with a much higher absorption coefficient (6.15 × 104 cm−1). Such properties are elusive for polymer acceptors to date, eradicating the drawbacks inherited in N2200 and other high‐performance polymer acceptors. When blended with a wide‐bandgap polymer donor, the DCNBT‐IDT‐based all‐PSCs achieve a remarkable power conversion efficiency of 8.32% with a small energy loss of 0.53 eV and a photoresponse of up to 870 nm. Such efficiency greatly outperforms those of N2200 (6.13%) and the naphthalene diimide (NDI)‐based analog NDI‐IDT (2.19%). This work breaks the long‐standing bottlenecks limiting materials innovation of n‐type polymers, which paves a new avenue for developing polymer acceptors with improved optoelectronic properties and heralds a brighter future of all‐PSCs.

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Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

A Narrow‐Bandgap n‐Type Polymer Semiconductor Enabling Efficient All‐Polymer Solar Cells

et al. 2019

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“…During the past five years, polymer solar cells (PSCs) based on narrow bandgap (NBG) fused‐ring small molecule (SM) acceptors have made considerable progress, among which the state‐of‐the‐art PSCs have achieved power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 16–18% . Regarding such SM acceptor‐based PSCs, the all‐polymer solar cells (all‐PSCs) consisting of a polymer donor and a polymer acceptor show unique advantages in the flexible large‐scale and wearable energy generators due to their excellent morphology stability and mechanical robustness . However, most of the efficient all‐PSCs have PCEs ranging in 8–10%, although a few of them achieved PCEs over 11%, which is still far behind that of the efficient PSCs based on SM acceptors due to the lack of high‐performance polymer acceptors.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

10.13% Efficiency All‐Polymer Solar Cells Enabled by Improving the Optical Absorption of Polymer Acceptors

Fan

Liu

et al. 2020

Solar RRL

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During the past five years, polymer solar cells (PSCs) based on narrow bandgap (NBG) fused-ring small molecule (SM) acceptors have made considerable progress, [1][2][3][4] among which the state-of-the-art PSCs have achieved power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 16-18%. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] Regarding such SM acceptor-based PSCs, the all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) consisting of a polymer donor and a polymer acceptor show unique advantages in the flexible large-scale and wearable energy generators due to their excellent morphology stability and mechanical robustness. [18][19][20][21] However, most of the efficient all-PSCs have PCEs ranging in 8-10%, [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34] although a few of them achieved PCEs over 11%, [35][36][37] which is still far behind that of the efficient PSCs based on SM acceptors due to the lack of high-performance polymer acceptors. To date, polymer acceptors have been mainly confined into a small number of structural building blocks, [24][25][26][38][39][40] and the most widely studied one is the polymer N2200 with a donor-acceptor (D-A) backbone of naphthalene diimide (NDI)-alt-bithiophene due to its NBG and suitable molecular energy levels. [39][40][41][42][43] However, N2200 neat film suffers from a low absorption coefficient of %0.3 Â 10 5 cm À1 and an excess strong crystallinity and stacking, which usually lead to the limited photocurrent and large phase separation in active layers. [39][40][41][42][43] The limited light absorption capacity for most polymer acceptors hinders the improvement of the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs). Herein, by simultaneously increasing the conjugation of the acceptor unit and enhancing the electron-donating ability of the donor unit, a novel narrowbandgap polymer acceptor PF3-DTCO based on an A-D-A-structured acceptor unit ITIC16 and a carbon-oxygen (C-O)-bridged donor unit DTCO is developed. The extended conjugation of the acceptor units from IDIC16 to ITIC16 results in a red-shifted absorption spectrum and improved absorption coefficient without significant reduction of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy level. Moreover, in addition to further broadening the absorption spectrum by the enhanced intramolecular charge transfer effect, the introduction of C-O bridges into the donor unit improves the absorption coefficient and electron mobility, as well as optimizes the morphology and molecular order of active layers. As a result, the PF3-DTCO achieves a higher PCE of 10.13% with a higher short-circuit current density ( J sc ) of 15.75 mA cm À2 in all-PSCs compared with its original polymer acceptor PF2-DTC (PCE ¼ 8.95% and J sc ¼ 13.82 mA cm À2 ). Herein, a promising method is provided to construct high-performance polymer acceptors with excellent optical absorption for efficient all-PSCs.

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“…As a promising technology for conversion of solar energy into electricity, bulk heterojunction (BHJ) polymer solar cells (PSCs) have attracted particular interest from both industrial and academic communities due to their potential application in lightweight, flexible, and large‐area devices through low‐cost high throughput solution processing technology . Recently, BHJ all‐polymer solar cells (all‐PSCs), which are composed of polymer donors and polymer acceptors, have some important practical advantages over the most studied fullerene‐based PSCs, including superior optical, thermal and mechanical stability, complementary light absorption between polymer acceptor and polymer donor, in tandem with straightforward tailoring of their chemical, optical and electronic parameters . Hence, significant efforts spanning novel device engineering and photovoltaic polymers design have been paid to the all‐PSCs in the past several years .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, BHJ all‐polymer solar cells (all‐PSCs), which are composed of polymer donors and polymer acceptors, have some important practical advantages over the most studied fullerene‐based PSCs, including superior optical, thermal and mechanical stability, complementary light absorption between polymer acceptor and polymer donor, in tandem with straightforward tailoring of their chemical, optical and electronic parameters . Hence, significant efforts spanning novel device engineering and photovoltaic polymers design have been paid to the all‐PSCs in the past several years . The all‐PSCs have rapidly reached a significant breakthrough with power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of >11 % .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pronounced Dependence of All‐Polymer Solar Cells Photovoltaic Performance on the Alkyl Substituent Patterns in Large Bandgap Polymer Donors

et al. 2020

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For all-polymer solar cells which are composed of polymer donors and polymer acceptors, the effect of alkyl side chains on photovoltaic performance is a matter of some debate, and this effect remains difficult to forecast. In this concise contribution, we demonstrate that three alkyls namely branched alkyl 2butyloctyl (2BO), long linear alkyl n-dodecyl (C12), and doubleshort linear alkyl n-hexyls (DC6) incorporated into the side chains of large bandgap polymer donor PBDT-TTz can induce considerable, of significance, and different electronic, optical, and morphological parameters. Systematic studies shed light on the critical role of the double-short linear alkyl n-hexyls (DC6) in (i) producing large ionization potential value, (ii) increasing propensity of the polymer to order along the π-stacking direction, (iii) generating polymer crystallites with more preferential "face-on" orientation, consequently, (iv) improvement of carriers transportation, (v) suppression of charge recombination, (vi) reduction of energy loss in allpolymer devices. In parallel, we unearth that the PBDT-TTz with double-short linear alkyl n-hexyls (DC6) represents the highest efficiency of 8.3 %, whereas, the other two PBDT-TTz analogues (2BO, C12) yield efficiencies of less than 3 % in optimized allpolymer solar cells. Though branched or long linear alkyl side chains (2BO, C12) have been applied to provide the solution processability of conjugated polymers, motifs bearing multiple short linear alkyl substituents (DC6) are proved critical to the development of high performing polymers.[a] J. . Measured (a) J SC , and (b) V OC of all-polymer BHJ solar cells made with polymer donors DC6, C12, 2BO, and polymer acceptor N2200, plotted vs. P light (symbols) on a logarithmic scale, together with the linear fits to the data (solid lines). ChemPhysChemArticles

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All‐Polymer Solar Cells: Recent Progress, Challenges, and Prospects

Cited by 514 publications

References 75 publications

A Narrow‐Bandgap n‐Type Polymer Semiconductor Enabling Efficient All‐Polymer Solar Cells

A Narrow‐Bandgap n‐Type Polymer Semiconductor Enabling Efficient All‐Polymer Solar Cells

10.13% Efficiency All‐Polymer Solar Cells Enabled by Improving the Optical Absorption of Polymer Acceptors

Pronounced Dependence of All‐Polymer Solar Cells Photovoltaic Performance on the Alkyl Substituent Patterns in Large Bandgap Polymer Donors

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