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High Open-circuit Voltage and Low Voltage Loss in All-polymer Solar Cell with a Poly(coronenediimide-vinylene) Acceptor

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Abstract

Reducing the voltage loss (Vloss) is a critical factor in optimizing the open-circuit voltage (Voc) and overall power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of polymer solar cells. In the current work, by designing a novel electron-accepting unit of coronenediimide (CDI) and using it as the main functional building block, a new polymer acceptor CDI-V is developed and applied to fabricate all-polymer solar cells. Compared with the perylenediimide-based polymer acceptors we previously reported, the current CDI-V polymer possesses a noticeably elevated lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO). Thereby, by virtue of the enlarged energy gap between the donor HOMO and acceptor LUMO, a high Voc value of 1.05 V is achieved by the all-polymer photovolatic device, along with an impressively low Vloss of 0.55 V. As remarkably, in spite of an extremely small LUMO level offset of 0.01 eV exhibited by the donor and acceptor polymers, effective charge separation still takes place in the all-polymer device, as evidenced by a proper short-circuit current (Jsc) of 9.5 mA·cm2 and a decent PCE of 4.63%.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21674001, 21925501, and 21790363) and the High-performance Computing Platform of Peking University for the computational resources. This work was also partially supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (Nos. T23-407/13 N,N_HKUST623/13, 16305915, 16322416, and 606012), HKJEBN Limited, HKUST president's office (No. FP201), and Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Commission (Nos. ITCCNERC14SC01 and ITS/083/15).

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Centre for the Soft Matter Science and Engineering, The Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics of the Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Han Han, Rong Wei, Yi-Kun Guo & Da-Hui Zhao

  2. Department of Chemistry and Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Centre for Tissue Restoration & Reconstruction, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, 999077, China

    Fu-Jin Bai, Han Yu & He Yan

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  1. Han Han
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  2. Fu-Jin Bai
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  5. Yi-Kun Guo
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Correspondence to He Yan or Da-Hui Zhao.

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Han, H., Bai, FJ., Wei, R. et al. High Open-circuit Voltage and Low Voltage Loss in All-polymer Solar Cell with a Poly(coronenediimide-vinylene) Acceptor. Chin J Polym Sci 38, 1157–1163 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-020-2426-6

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