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11.2% Efficiency all-polymer solar cells with high open-circuit voltage

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Abstract

Herein, we fabricated all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) based on a fluorinated wide-bandgap p-type conjugated polymer PM6 as the donor, and a narrow bandgap n-type conjugated polymer PZ1 as the acceptor. In addition to the complementary absorption and matching energy levels, the optimized blend films possess high cystallinity, predominantly face-on stacking, and a suitable phase separated morphology. With this active layer, the devices exhibited a high Voc of 0.96 V, a superior Jsc of 17.1 mA cm-2, a fine fill factor (FF) of 68.2%, and thus an excellent power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 11.2%, which is the highest value reported to date for single-junction all-PSCs. Furthermore, the devices showed good storage stability. After 80 d of storage in the N2-filled glovebox, the PCE still remained over 90% of the original value. Large-area devices (1.1 cm2) also demonstrated an outstanding performance with a PCE of 9.2%, among the highest values for the reported large-area all-PSCs. These results indicate that the PM6:PZ1 blend is a promising candidate for scale-up production of large area high-performance all-PSCs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51773142, 51573120, 21734009, 91633301). T. P. Russell was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research (N00014-15-1-2244). Portions of this research were carried out at beamline 7.3.3 and 11.0.1.2 at the Advanced Light Source, Molecular Foundry, and National Center for Electron Microscopy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which was supported by the DOE, Office of Science, and Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, Laboratory of Advanced Optoelectronic Materials, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215123, China

    Yuan Meng, Jingnan Wu, Xia Guo, Wenyan Su, Jin Fang, Maojie Zhang & Yongfang Li

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy and Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Lei Zhu & Feng Liu

  3. Polymer Science and Engineering Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA

    Thomas P. Russell

  4. Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, 94720, USA

    Thomas P. Russell

  5. CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Zhi-Guo Zhang & Yongfang Li

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  1. Yuan Meng
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  2. Jingnan Wu
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  3. Xia Guo
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  4. Wenyan Su
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  6. Jin Fang
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  7. Zhi-Guo Zhang
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  8. Feng Liu
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  9. Maojie Zhang
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  10. Thomas P. Russell
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  11. Yongfang Li
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Correspondence to Maojie Zhang.

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Meng, Y., Wu, J., Guo, X. et al. 11.2% Efficiency all-polymer solar cells with high open-circuit voltage. Sci. China Chem. 62, 845–850 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-019-9466-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-019-9466-6

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