Achieving Record-Efficiency Organic Solar Cells upon Tuning the Conformation of Solid Additives

Congqi Li; Xiaobin Gu; Zhihao Chen; Xiao Han; Na Yu; Yanan Wei; Jinhua Gao; Hao Chen; Meng Zhang; Ao Wang; Jianqi Zhang; Zhixiang Wei; Qian Peng; Zheng Tang; Xiaotao Hao; Xin Zhang; Hui Huang

doi:10.1021/jacs.2c05303

Achieving Record-Efficiency Organic Solar Cells upon Tuning the Conformation of Solid Additives

J Am Chem Soc. 2022 Aug 17;144(32):14731-14739. doi: 10.1021/jacs.2c05303. Epub 2022 Jul 20.

Authors

Congqi Li¹, Xiaobin Gu¹, Zhihao Chen², Xiao Han¹, Na Yu³, Yanan Wei¹, Jinhua Gao¹, Hao Chen¹, Meng Zhang¹, Ao Wang⁴, Jianqi Zhang⁵, Zhixiang Wei⁵, Qian Peng⁶, Zheng Tang³, Xiaotao Hao², Xin Zhang¹, Hui Huang¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Materials Science and Opto-Electronic Technology, Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation, CAS Key Laboratory of Vacuum Physics, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
² School of Physics, State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, Shandong, China.
³ Center for Advanced Low-Dimension Materials, State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China.
⁴ College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China.
⁵ CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing 100190, China.
⁶ School of Chemical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.

Abstract

Volatile solid additives (SADs) are considered as a simple yet effective approach to tune the film morphology for high-performance organic solar cells (OSCs). However, the structural effects of the SADs on the photovoltaic performance are still elusive. Herein, two volatilizable SADs were designed and synthesized. One is SAD1 with twisted conformation, while the other one is planar SAD2 with the S···O noncovalent intramolecular interactions (NIIs). The theoretical and experimental results revealed that the planar SAD2 with smaller space occupation can more easily insert between the Y6 molecules, which is beneficial to form a tighter intermolecular packing mode of Y6 after thermal treatment. As a result, the SAD2-treated OSCs exhibited less recombination loss, more balanced charge mobility, higher hole transfer rate, and more favorable morphology, resulting in a record power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.85% (certified PCE: 18.7%) for single-junction binary OSCs. The universality of this study shed light on understanding the conformation effects of SADs on photovoltaic performances of OSCs.