Efficient Polymer Solar Cells with Alcohol-Soluble Zirconium(IV) Isopropoxide Cathode Buffer Layer

Abstract

Abstract:Interfacial materials are essential to the performance and stability of polymer solar cells (PSCs). Herein, solution-processed zirconium(IV) isopropoxide (Zr[OCH(CH 3 ) 2 ] 4 , ZrIPO) has been employed as an efficient cathode buffer layer between the Al cathode and photoactive layer. The ZrIPO buffer layer is prepared simply via spin-coating its isopropanol solution on the photoactive layer at room temperature without any post-treatment. When using ZrIPO/Al instead of the traditionally used Ca/Al cathode in PSCs, the short-circuit current density (J sc ) is significantly improved and the series resistance of the device is decreased. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the P3HT:PCBM-based device with ZrIPO buffer layer reaches 4.47% under the illumination of AM1.5G, 100 mW/cm 2 . A better performance with PCE of 8.07% is achieved when a low bandgap polymer PBDTBDD is selected as donor material. The results indicate that ZrIPO is a promising electron collection material as a substitute of the traditional low-work-function cathode for high performance PSCs.

Constructing Desired Vertical Component Distribution Within a PBDB-T:ITIC-M Photoactive Layer via Fine-Tuning the Surface Free Energy of a Titanium Chelate Cathode Buffer Layer

“…The photosensitive layer was prepared by spin-coating the PBDB-T:ITIC-M chlorobenzene solution (1:1 weight ratio, polymer concentration of 10 mg/mL) with 5% volume ratio of DIO additive on the ITO/PEDOT:PSS and ITO/TOPD substrates at optimized 1,900 rpm for 60 s. Subsequently, the samples were annealed at 100°C for 10 min to obtain the PBDB-T:ITIC-M layer with the thickness of ~100 nm (Bai et al, 2017 ). Finally, the anode of Ca(10 nm)/Al(100 nm) for the control devices or MoO 3 (24 nm)/Al(100 nm) for the inverted PSCs was thermally deposited on the active layer under a base pressure of 5 × 10 −5 Pa (Luo et al, 2018 ).…”

Organic–inorganic hybrid cathode interlayer materials for efficient organic solar cells

“…When TOPD is used as the CIL to fabricate inverted OSCs, vertical phase separation of the photoactive layer can be realized, which is beneficial for enhancing device efficiency. Tan's group further reported that similar Zr 119 and Hf 120 based coordination complexes can be used as CILs for regular OSCs. For the Hf(ACB1) 4 CIL (Fig.…”