Donor polymer design enables efficient non-fullerene organic solar cells

Zhengke Li; Kui Jiang; Guofang Yang; Joshua Yuk Lin Lai; Tingxuan Ma; Jingbo Zhao; Wei Ma; He Yan

doi:10.1038/ncomms13094

Donor polymer design enables efficient non-fullerene organic solar cells

Zhengke Li, Kui Jiang, Guofang Yang, Joshua Yuk Lin Lai, Tingxuan Ma, Jingbo Zhao, Wei Ma^*, He Yan^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

366 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

To achieve efficient organic solar cells, the design of suitable donor-acceptor couples is crucially important. State-of-the-art donor polymers used in fullerene cells may not perform well when they are combined with non-fullerene acceptors, thus new donor polymers need to be developed. Here we report non-fullerene organic solar cells with efficiencies up to 10.9%, enabled by a novel donor polymer that exhibits strong temperature-dependent aggregation but with intentionally reduced polymer crystallinity due to the introduction of a less symmetric monomer unit. Our comparative study shows that an analogue polymer with a C2 symmetric monomer unit yields highly crystalline polymer films but less efficient non-fullerene cells. Based on a monomer with a mirror symmetry, our best donor polymer exhibits reduced crystallinity, yet such a polymer matches better with small molecular acceptors. This study provides important insights to the design of donor polymers for non-fullerene organic solar cells.

Original language	English
Article number	13094
Number of pages	9
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	7
Online published	26 Oct 2016
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms13094
Publication status	Published - 2016
Externally published	Yes

Funding

The work was partially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program; 2014CB643501 and 2013CB834705), Ministry of science and technology (No. 2016YFA0200700), HK JEBN Limited (Hong Kong), the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (T23-407/13-N, N_HKUST623/13 and 606012), HKUST President's Office through SSTSP scheme (project ref number: EP201) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21374090, 21504066, 51361165301 and 51320105014). We thank Enli Technology Co., Ltd. (Taiwan) for carrying out certification and EQE measurements. X-ray data was acquired at beamlines 11.0.1.2 and 7.3.3 at the Advanced Light Source, which is supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy

Research Keywords

POWER-CONVERSION EFFICIENCY
ELECTRON-ACCEPTORS
PHOTOVOLTAIC CELLS
MOLECULAR-ORIENTATION
PERFORMANCE
RECOMBINATION
VOLTAGE
CHAINS

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This full text is made available under CC-BY 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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title = "Donor polymer design enables efficient non-fullerene organic solar cells",

abstract = "To achieve efficient organic solar cells, the design of suitable donor-acceptor couples is crucially important. State-of-the-art donor polymers used in fullerene cells may not perform well when they are combined with non-fullerene acceptors, thus new donor polymers need to be developed. Here we report non-fullerene organic solar cells with efficiencies up to 10.9%, enabled by a novel donor polymer that exhibits strong temperature-dependent aggregation but with intentionally reduced polymer crystallinity due to the introduction of a less symmetric monomer unit. Our comparative study shows that an analogue polymer with a C2 symmetric monomer unit yields highly crystalline polymer films but less efficient non-fullerene cells. Based on a monomer with a mirror symmetry, our best donor polymer exhibits reduced crystallinity, yet such a polymer matches better with small molecular acceptors. This study provides important insights to the design of donor polymers for non-fullerene organic solar cells.",

keywords = "POWER-CONVERSION EFFICIENCY, ELECTRON-ACCEPTORS, PHOTOVOLTAIC CELLS, MOLECULAR-ORIENTATION, PERFORMANCE, RECOMBINATION, VOLTAGE, CHAINS",

author = "Zhengke Li and Kui Jiang and Guofang Yang and Lai, {Joshua Yuk Lin} and Tingxuan Ma and Jingbo Zhao and Wei Ma and He Yan",

year = "2016",

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AU - Li, Zhengke

AU - Jiang, Kui

AU - Yang, Guofang

AU - Lai, Joshua Yuk Lin

AU - Ma, Tingxuan

AU - Zhao, Jingbo

AU - Ma, Wei

AU - Yan, He

PY - 2016

Y1 - 2016

N2 - To achieve efficient organic solar cells, the design of suitable donor-acceptor couples is crucially important. State-of-the-art donor polymers used in fullerene cells may not perform well when they are combined with non-fullerene acceptors, thus new donor polymers need to be developed. Here we report non-fullerene organic solar cells with efficiencies up to 10.9%, enabled by a novel donor polymer that exhibits strong temperature-dependent aggregation but with intentionally reduced polymer crystallinity due to the introduction of a less symmetric monomer unit. Our comparative study shows that an analogue polymer with a C2 symmetric monomer unit yields highly crystalline polymer films but less efficient non-fullerene cells. Based on a monomer with a mirror symmetry, our best donor polymer exhibits reduced crystallinity, yet such a polymer matches better with small molecular acceptors. This study provides important insights to the design of donor polymers for non-fullerene organic solar cells.

AB - To achieve efficient organic solar cells, the design of suitable donor-acceptor couples is crucially important. State-of-the-art donor polymers used in fullerene cells may not perform well when they are combined with non-fullerene acceptors, thus new donor polymers need to be developed. Here we report non-fullerene organic solar cells with efficiencies up to 10.9%, enabled by a novel donor polymer that exhibits strong temperature-dependent aggregation but with intentionally reduced polymer crystallinity due to the introduction of a less symmetric monomer unit. Our comparative study shows that an analogue polymer with a C2 symmetric monomer unit yields highly crystalline polymer films but less efficient non-fullerene cells. Based on a monomer with a mirror symmetry, our best donor polymer exhibits reduced crystallinity, yet such a polymer matches better with small molecular acceptors. This study provides important insights to the design of donor polymers for non-fullerene organic solar cells.

KW - POWER-CONVERSION EFFICIENCY

KW - ELECTRON-ACCEPTORS

KW - PHOTOVOLTAIC CELLS

KW - MOLECULAR-ORIENTATION

KW - PERFORMANCE

KW - RECOMBINATION

KW - VOLTAGE

KW - CHAINS

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DO - 10.1038/ncomms13094

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

C2 - 27782112

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 7

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

M1 - 13094

ER -

Donor polymer design enables efficient non-fullerene organic solar cells

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Research Keywords

Publisher's Copyright Statement

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