Efficient and Ultraviolet‐Durable Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells: From Interfacial Passivation and Microstructural Modification Perspectives

Abstract

Ultraviolet (UV)‐durable organic solar cells (OSCs) are realized by incorporating a CdSe@ZnS quantum dots (QDs)‐modified PEDOT:PSS hole extraction layer (HEL). The use of the CdSe@ZnS QDs‐modified PEDOT:PSS HEL has an obvious improvement in UV‐durability of OSCs. A more than 50% reduction in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) is observed for a (PM6:Y6)‐based control OSC with a PEDOT:PSS HEL, under the 1000 min accelerated UV (365 nm, 16 W) aging test. Whereas a much reduced reduction of 35% in PCE is observed for the OSCs with a CdSe@ZnS QDs‐modified PEDOT:PSS HEL, under the same accelerated UV aging test condition. Results reveal that the Coulombic attraction between the PEDOT units and PSS chains in the PEDOT:PSS layer is disturbed due to the interaction between hydroxyl ligands of the CdSe@ZnS QDs and PSS through hydrogen bond, leading to an increase in the electric conductivity in PEDOT:PSS layer through transforming PEDOT quinoid structure to expanded‐coil structure. The use of the CdSe@ZnS QDs‐modified PEDOT:PSS HEL also favors the efficient operation of the nonfullerene acceptor (NFA)‐based OSCs through maintaining a high built‐in potential across the bulk heterojunction. The results demonstrate the importance of the interface engineering to alleviate UV light‐induced degradation processes of NFA‐based OSCs.

Lifetime over 10000 hours for organic solar cells with Ir/IrOx electron-transporting layer

“…While, all mean parameters of the device on Ir/IrO x still maintain over 94% of the initial values and the champion device can maintain 95% of initial PCE. This is also the best T 95 reported on non-fullerene OSCs under UV irradiation 64 – 68 . Raman spectra were applied to track the evolution of Y6 molecular structure on different ETLs during the UV-irradiation process.…”

Dramatic improvement in the stability and mechanism of high-performance inverted polymer solar cells featuring a solution-processed buffer layer

“…This method retains the stable and high built-in potential across BHJ, which improves the operational stability of non-fullerene-based PSCs. W. Lan 48 incorporated CdSe@ZnS quantum dots (QD) to modify PEDOT: PSS HTL in which the coulombic attraction between the PEDOT units and PSS units is disturbed. The use of CdSe@ZnS QDs-PEDOT: PSS HEL decreases the reduction in PCE under accelerated UV aging test conditions.…”

Promoting the stability of organic photovoltaics by planar heterojunction optimization

“…Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) offer several distinct advantages, such as low cost, light weight, and being solution processible and nontoxic, which make it a promising candidate as a renewable energy resource. [1][2][3] Different methods have been used to improve the performance of OPV devices, such as designing innovative donor and acceptor materials, 4 interface modication, 5 solvent additives, 6,7 and so on. Recently, continuous power conversion efficiency (PCE) improvement has been achieved by utilizing novel donor and acceptor materials.…”