Investigation of Charge Carrier Behavior in High Performance Ternary Blend Polymer Solar Cells

This study demonstrates high‐performance, ternary‐blend polymer solar cells by modifying a binary blend bulk heterojunction (PPDT2FBT:PC71BM) with the addition of a ternary component, PPDT2CNBT. PPDT2CNBT is designed to have complementary absorption and deeper frontier energy levels compared to PPDT2FBT, while being based on the same polymeric backbone. A power conversion efficiency of 9.46% is achieved via improvements in both short‐circuit current density (JSC) and open‐circuit voltage (VOC). Interestingly, the VOC increases with increasing the PPDT2CNBT content in ternary blends. In‐depth studies using ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy and transient absorption spectroscopy indicate that the two polymers are not electronically homogeneous and function as discrete light harvesting species. The structural similarity between PPDT2CNBT and PPDT2FBT allows the merits of a ternary system to be fully utilized to enhance both JSC and VOC without detriment to fill‐factor via minimized disruption of semi‐crystalline morphology of binary PPDT2FBT:PC71BM blend. Further, by careful analysis, charge carrier transport in this ternary blend is clearly verified to follow parallel‐like behavior.

[1]  Yanming Sun,et al.  Ternary Organic Solar Cells Based on Two Highly Efficient Polymer Donors with Enhanced Power Conversion Efficiency , 2016 .

[2]  Huajun Xu,et al.  High-performance ternary blend all-polymer solar cells with complementary absorption bands from visible to near-infrared wavelengths , 2016 .

[3]  Jisoo Shin,et al.  Energy Level Engineering of Donor Polymers via Inductive and Resonance Effects for Polymer Solar Cells: Effects of Cyano and Alkoxy Substituents , 2015 .

[4]  Thanh Luan Nguyen,et al.  Interplay of Intramolecular Noncovalent Coulomb Interactions for Semicrystalline Photovoltaic Polymers , 2015 .

[5]  Wei You,et al.  Status and prospects for ternary organic photovoltaics , 2015, Nature Photonics.

[6]  Jianqi Zhang,et al.  Conjugated Polymer-Small Molecule Alloy Leads to High Efficient Ternary Organic Solar Cells. , 2015, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[7]  Wei Chen,et al.  High-performance ternary blend polymer solar cells involving both energy transfer and hole relay processes , 2015, Nature Communications.

[8]  Jun Li,et al.  Enhanced efficiency of polymer solar cells by adding a high-mobility conjugated polymer , 2015 .

[9]  H. Woo,et al.  Improved Performance in Polymer Solar Cells Using Mixed PC61BM/PC71BM Acceptors , 2015 .

[10]  Yang Yang,et al.  High-performance multiple-donor bulk heterojunction solar cells , 2015, Nature Photonics.

[11]  Jin Jang,et al.  A high efficiency solution processed polymer inverted triple-junction solar cell exhibiting a power conversion efficiency of 11.83% , 2015 .

[12]  He Yan,et al.  Aggregation and morphology control enables multiple cases of high-efficiency polymer solar cells , 2014, Nature Communications.

[13]  T. Xu,et al.  Ternary blend polymer solar cells with enhanced power conversion efficiency , 2014, Nature Photonics.

[14]  Jin Young Kim,et al.  Semi-crystalline photovoltaic polymers with efficiency exceeding 9% in a ∼300 nm thick conventional single-cell device , 2014 .

[15]  Yang Yang,et al.  An Efficient Triple‐Junction Polymer Solar Cell Having a Power Conversion Efficiency Exceeding 11% , 2014, Advanced materials.

[16]  D. Moses,et al.  Ultrafast Charge Generation in an Organic Bilayer Film. , 2014, The journal of physical chemistry letters.

[17]  Yongfang Li,et al.  Efficient ternary blend polymer solar cells with indene-C60 bisadduct as an electron-cascade acceptor , 2014 .

[18]  Robert P. H. Chang,et al.  Polymer solar cells with enhanced fill factors , 2013, Nature Photonics.

[19]  B. Lee,et al.  Versatile surface plasmon resonance of carbon-dot-supported silver nanoparticles in polymer optoelectronic devices , 2013, Nature Photonics.

[20]  Daniel Moses,et al.  Coherence and Uncertainty in Nanostructured Organic Photovoltaics , 2013 .

[21]  Matthew Y. Sfeir,et al.  Polymer bulk heterojunction solar cells employing Förster resonance energy transfer , 2013, Nature Photonics.

[22]  A. Heeger,et al.  High‐Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells Enhanced by Solvent Treatment , 2013, Advanced materials.

[23]  Robert A. Street,et al.  Origin of the tunable open-circuit voltage in ternary blend bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. , 2013, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[24]  Gregory C. Welch,et al.  Photoinduced charge generation in a molecular bulk heterojunction material. , 2012, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[25]  B. Thompson,et al.  Compositional dependence of the open-circuit voltage in ternary blend bulk heterojunction solar cells based on two donor polymers. , 2012, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[26]  Soo-young Park,et al.  π-Conjugated cyanostilbene derivatives: a unique self-assembly motif for molecular nanostructures with enhanced emission and transport. , 2012, Accounts of chemical research.

[27]  W. You,et al.  Parallel-like bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells. , 2012, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[28]  Dongho Kim,et al.  Multistimuli two-color luminescence switching via different slip-stacking of highly fluorescent molecular sheets. , 2010, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[29]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Near IR Sensitization of Organic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells: Towards Optimization of the Spectral Response of Organic Solar Cells , 2010 .

[30]  N. E. Coates,et al.  Efficient Tandem Polymer Solar Cells Fabricated by All-Solution Processing , 2007, Science.

[31]  A J Heeger,et al.  Efficiency enhancement in low-bandgap polymer solar cells by processing with alkane dithiols. , 2007, Nature materials.

[32]  Xiong Gong,et al.  New Architecture for High‐Efficiency Polymer Photovoltaic Cells Using Solution‐Based Titanium Oxide as an Optical Spacer , 2006 .

[33]  I. A. Hümmelgen,et al.  Physical and chemical characterization of poly(2-bromo-5-hexyloxy-p-phenylenevinylene) and poly(5,5′-dibromo-2,2′-bis-hexyloxy-4,4′-biphenylenevinylene)—comparison to related polymers , 2006 .

[34]  Valentin D. Mihailetchi,et al.  Origin of the light intensity dependence of the short-circuit current of polymer/fullerene solar cells , 2005 .

[35]  V. Mihailetchi,et al.  Space-charge limited photocurrent. , 2005, Physical review letters.