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Efficiency enhancement of P3HT:PCBM polymer solar cells using oligomers DH4T as the third component

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Abstract

We assembled a ternary blend bulk heterojunction polymer solar cell (PSCs) containing P3HT (donor) and PC61BM (acceptor) incorporated with a dihexyl-quaterthiophene (DH4T) small molecule oligomer as a third component. By optimizing the contents of DH4T, we increased the power conversion efficiency of ternary P3HT:DH4T:PC61BM PSCs to 4.17% from 3.44% of binary P3HT:PC61BM PSCs under AM 1.5 G of 100 mW/cm2 intensity. The major improvement is from the increase of the short circuit current and fill factor that is due to the increased light absorption at short wavelength, the balanced charge carrier transportation and the enhanced hole evacuation by a DH4T-enriched layer at the anode interface. In this work, we demonstrate that the efficiency of the PSCs can be enhanced by using low-bandgap conjugated polymer and its oligomer as donors and fullerene derivatives as acceptors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Catalysis; Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian, 116023, China

    Ping Fu, Dong Yang, Wei Yu, Jian Zhang & Can Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Optical Information, Ministry of Education, Beijing, 100044, China

    Fujun Zhang

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Ping Fu, Dong Yang & Wei Yu

Authors
  1. Ping Fu
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  2. Dong Yang
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  3. Fujun Zhang
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  4. Wei Yu
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  5. Jian Zhang
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  6. Can Li
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Correspondence to Jian Zhang or Can Li.

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Fu, P., Yang, D., Zhang, F. et al. Efficiency enhancement of P3HT:PCBM polymer solar cells using oligomers DH4T as the third component. Sci. China Chem. 58, 1169–1175 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-015-5328-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-015-5328-7

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