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Effects of high-boiling-point additive 2-Bromonaphthalene on polymer solar cells fabricated in ambient air

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Abstract

High boiling point solvent additive, employed during the solution processing of active layer fabrications, impact the efficiency of bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells (PSC) by influencing the morphological of the active layer. The photovoltaic performances of the PSCs based on the donor of poly{4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]-dithiophene-2,6-diyl-alt-3-fluoro-2-[(2 ethylhexyl)carbonyl] thieno[3,4-b]thiophene-4,6-diy (PTB7) and the acceptor of [6, 6]-phenyl-C71-butyric-acidmethyl-ester (PC71BM) was optimized using 5 vol% high-boiling-point solvent additive of 2-Bromonaphthalene (BN). The optimized air-processed PSC based on PTB7:PC71BM (1:1.5 w/w) with 5 vol% BN exhibited a power conversion efficiency of 7.01% with open-circuit voltage (V oc) of 0.731 V, short-circuit current density (J sc) of 13.79 mA cm−2, and fill factor (FF) of 69.46%. The effects of the additive on photovoltaic performances were illustrated with atomic force microscopy and transmission electron microscope measurements. Our results indicate that the improved efficiency is due to the optimized PTB7/PC71BM interpenetrating network and the enhanced absorption of the active layer using the BN as solvent additive.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61377031) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61404073).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Tianjin Key Laboratory for Optical-Electronics Thin Film Devices and Technology, College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Xiaoxiang Sun, Chang Li, Like Huang, Rui Xu, Jian Ni, Hongkun Cai, Juan Li & Jianjun Zhang

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  1. Xiaoxiang Sun
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Correspondence to Jian Ni or Jianjun Zhang.

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Sun, X., Li, C., Huang, L. et al. Effects of high-boiling-point additive 2-Bromonaphthalene on polymer solar cells fabricated in ambient air. Polym. Bull. 74, 4515–4524 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-017-1971-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-017-1971-9

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