Highly efficient organic solar cells using a solution-processed active layer with a small molecule donor and pristine fullerene

Lin, Huey-Wen; Chang, Jung Hao; Huang, Wei; Lin, Yu Ting; Lin, Li; Lin, Francis; Wong, Ken‐Tsung; Wang, Hsiao Fang; Ho, Rong Ming; Meng, Hsin Fei

doi:10.1039/c3ta15138g

Cited by 32 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…However, there exist a number of organic solvents such as o‐dichlorobenzene (o‐DCB) and 1‐chloronaphthalene that offer a solubility of more than 20 g L −1 for both C 60 and C 70 . Hence, several examples exist in the literature that demonstrate spin‐coated C 60 and C 70 field‐effect transistors with an electron mobility above 1 cm 2 V −1 s −1 , and C 70 ‐based binary solar cells with a PCE of 4 to 6% …”

Section: Glass Formation By Ternary Blends Based On Neat Fullerene Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Glass Forming Acceptor Alloys for Highly Efficient and Thermally Stable Ternary Organic Solar Cells

Zerio

Müller

2018

Advanced Energy Materials

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The stability of donor:acceptor (D:A) semiconductor blends plays a key role in the development of solution‐processed organic solar cells. One essential condition for both high‐yield production and a long lifetime is excellent thermal stability. Recently, A1:A2 acceptor mixtures have received considerable attention and alloys of two miscible acceptors are singled out as a powerful tool for the design of efficient and durable organic solar cells. This progress report introduces a thermodynamic rationale for the superior thermal stability and reproducibility that is observed for some ternary blends. The increase in entropy upon mixing of several acceptors reduces the tendency for phase separation as well as crystallization, which facilitates the controlled formation of a fine blend nanostructure. Further, when combined with a high glass transition temperature many ternary blends can be readily quenched into a glassy state. Recent progress with regard to the thermal stability and efficiency of D:A1:A2 ternary blends is summarized in the light of the thermodynamic and kinetic arguments discussed in this article. Both, fullerene and fullerene‐free acceptor alloys now yield solar cell efficiencies in excess of 10%, which indicates that ternary blends are a promising avenue that is poised to considerably enhance the prospect of organic photovoltaics.

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Section: Glass Formation By Ternary Blends Based On Neat Fullerene Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Glass Forming Acceptor Alloys for Highly Efficient and Thermally Stable Ternary Organic Solar Cells

Zerio

Müller

2018

Advanced Energy Materials

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“…For a flexible PSC to be chemically stable, a flexible substrate must form a barrier to penetration of oxygen and moisture. Currently, most flexible PSCs are fabricated on transparent plastic film substrate such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polycarbonate, polyimide films . However, these substrates have the disadvantage of a high water vapor transmission rate (0.1 ≤ WVTR ≤ 10 g m −2 d −1 at 25 °C), which limits the lifetime of PSCs .…”

Section: Photovoltaic Parameters Of Spin‐coated and Bar‐coated Top‐ilmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This method is not compatible with large‐scale processes, because it has limited substrate size, is not easily adapted to continuous processes, and produces a large amount of chemical waste. To demonstrate high throughput and large‐area production of the TI‐PSCs, they must be printed on a metallic substrate . However, printing techniques such as screen printing, brush painting, and conventional bar‐coating require direct contact with the metallic substrate, and can easily damage it by scratching during printing.…”

Section: Photovoltaic Parameters Of Spin‐coated and Bar‐coated Top‐ilmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simple Bar‐Coating Process for Fabrication of Flexible Top‐Illuminated Polymer Solar Cells on Metallic Substrate

Dong

Ham

Kim

et al. 2016

Adv Materials Technologies

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printing. Moreover, TI-PSCs have shown poor photoconversion effi ciency (PCE) because of diffi culties in forming an active layer on a hydrophobic bottom refl ective electrode. [ 61 ] To realize TI-PSCs on metallic substrate, the printing method must: (1) use a simple noncontact printing technique to avoid scratching the bottom refl ective electrode, (2) be optimized to yield a uniform and reproducible active layer, and (3) be easily used in R2R processes to allow mass production. (4) Also, TI-PSCs on metallic substrate must have PCE comparable to those of TI-PSC on glass or plastic substrates. Therefore, to achieve highly effi cient R2R-processed TI-PSCs on metallic substrate, a printing process must be developed and a device structure must be designed.Hereby, we fabricated TI-PSCs on metallic substrate by using a simple bar-coating method to deposit an active layer of lowbandgap donor and fullerene acceptor (PTB7:PCBM) ( Figure 1 ). Because bar-coating, used in this work, is a noncontact printing technique, the thickness of the PTB7:PCBM layer was tuned without scratching the refl ective bottom electrode, leading to apply for large-area R2R fabrication of fl exible PSCs. To achieve a fl exible metallic substrate, we developed a simple way to prepare the Cu foil by vacuum-depositing Cu to 50 nm thickness on a glass substrate, then electroplating. The result was 100 µm thick Cu foils that could be peeled from the glass substrate, and that had chemically clean and atomically fl at surface and are lightweight, fl exible, strong, thermally stable, and have low WVTR. These advantages were exploited to demonstrate TI-PSCs. After optimizing the bar-coating process and designing the device structure, TI-PSCs were successfully fabricated on fl exible Cu foil; they had an average PCE of 5.7%, which is comparable to the PCE = 5.9% of TI-PSCs on rigid glass substrate and is the highest yet obtained by printed fl exible PSCs.Spin-coating and bar-coating were used to deposit largearea PTB7:PCBM layers. For spin-coating, 200 µL of precursor solution was dropped on the center of a glass substrate (area = 16 cm 2 ), which was then spun at 1800 rpm ( Figure 2 a). The PTB7:PCBM layer was uniform at the center, but not at the edge of the substrate because centrifugal force during spinning prevented the solution from wetting the surface. To obtain uniform layer, 600 µL of solution is required for spin-coating method ( Figure S1, Supporting Information). In contrast, barcoating 50 µL of precursor solution resulted in a conformal layer of PTB7:PCBM on a large substrate (area = 64 cm 2 ) (Figure 2 b). These results indicate that bar-coating allows the PTB7:PCBM layer to be more uniformly deposited on a larger substrate than the spin-coating method.Optical transmittance, OT (i.e., in visible spectrum 400 ≤ λ ≤ 800 nm) of bar-coated PTB7:PCBM layers decreased Flexible polymer solar cells (PSCs) are light weight, inexpensive, and compatible with large-area roll-to-roll (R2R) fabrication. [1][2][3][4][5] For a fl exible PSC to be chemicall...

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“…Here, we demonstrate long‐term stable and highperformance polymer–fullerene BHJ OSCs by adopting an integrated approach: i) combination of rapid‐drying blade‐coating deposition with an appropriate thermal annealing treatment to obtain an optimized morphology of the active layer; ii) insertion of interfacial layers to optimize the interfacial properties between the active layer and the electrode. We choose blade coating to deposit the active layer because it is a simple and scalable solution‐based deposition technique . Recently, high‐performance OSCs processed by a green blade‐coating process in air were demonstrated .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward Long‐Term Stable and Efficient Large‐Area Organic Solar Cells

Tsai

Lin

et al. 2017

ChemSusChem

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Here, we report that long-term stable and efficient organic solar cells (OSCs) can be obtained through the following strategies: i) combination of rapid-drying blade-coating deposition with an appropriate thermal annealing treatment to obtain an optimized morphology of the active layer; ii) insertion of interfacial layers to optimize the interfacial properties. The resulting devices based on poly[4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)thiophen-2-yl)benzo[1,2-b;4,5-b']dithiophene-2,6-diyl-alt-(4-(2-ethylhexyl)-3-fluorothieno[3,4-b]thiophene-2-carboxylate-2,6-diyl)] (PBDTTT-EFT):[6,6]-phenyl C butyric acid methyl ester (PC BM) blend as the active layer exhibits a power conversion efficiency (PCE) up to 9.57 %, which represents the highest efficiency ever reported for blade-coated OSCs. Importantly, the conventional structure devices based on poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):phenyl-C -butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) blend can retain approximately 65 % of their initial PCE for almost 2 years under operating conditions, which is the best result ever reported for long-term stable OSCs under operational conditions. More encouragingly, long-term stable large-area OSCs (active area=216 cm ) based on P3HT:PCBM blend are also demonstrated. Our findings represent an important step toward the development of large-area OSCs with high performance and long-term stability.

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Highly efficient organic solar cells using a solution-processed active layer with a small molecule donor and pristine fullerene

Abstract: Efficient SMOSCs with a solution-processed active layer composed of organic compounds without long alkyl chains as donors and pristine C70 as the acceptor have been successfully achieved by spin- and bar-coating methods.

Cited by 32 publications

References 35 publications

Glass Forming Acceptor Alloys for Highly Efficient and Thermally Stable Ternary Organic Solar Cells

Glass Forming Acceptor Alloys for Highly Efficient and Thermally Stable Ternary Organic Solar Cells

Simple Bar‐Coating Process for Fabrication of Flexible Top‐Illuminated Polymer Solar Cells on Metallic Substrate

Toward Long‐Term Stable and Efficient Large‐Area Organic Solar Cells

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