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Efficiency and stability improvement of non-fullerene organic solar cells with binary anode buffer layer

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Abstract

High performance and high stability are the urgent requirement for the potential commercial application of organic solar cells (OSCs). Electrode buffer layers have important influence on the photovoltaic performance and stability of OSCs. In this study, non-fullerene bulk heterojunction OSCs were prepared with molybdenum oxide (MoO3) as the first anode buffer layer and conductive polymer PEDOT:PSS as the second buffer layer. With the improved work function and interface contact, MoO3/PEDOT:PSS binary anode buffer layer enhance the open-circuit voltage (VOC), short-circuit current density (JSC) and fill factor (FF) simultaneously, boosting the power conversion efficiency (PCE) from 16.25% (for the single PEDOT:PSS buffer layer device) to 17.34%. In addition, the MoO3 layer prevents the direct contact between PEDOT:PSS layer and ITO, and avoids the corrosion of ITO by PEDOT:PSS, which improves the stability of the device obviously. Binary anode buffer layer strategy provides an efficient and simple method to prepare high-efficiency and high stability OSCs for potential commercial applications.

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All data used in this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Ye Zou and Dr. Xiaojuan Dai for the support of UPS test.

Funding

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61705003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Beijing Technology and Business University, Beijing, 100048, China

    Xuejiao Zhou, Yujiao Yan, Fenghua Zhang, Mandi Li, Jia Zhao, Rong Hu, Aicong Geng, Denghui Xu & Xiong Li

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  1. Xuejiao Zhou
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  2. Yujiao Yan
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  3. Fenghua Zhang
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Contributions

XZ contributed to experimental design, data acquisition, analysis, writing and editing. YY, FZ and ML contributed to material preparation, data collection and analysis. JZ contributed to experimental design, conception, data interpretation, writing-review and editing. RH, AG contributed to conception, data analysis and interpretation. DX contributed to conception, data interpretation, critical feedback and editing. XL contributed to supervision, funding acquisition, conception, writing-review and editing. All authors have approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jia Zhao or Xiong Li.

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Zhou, X., Yan, Y., Zhang, F. et al. Efficiency and stability improvement of non-fullerene organic solar cells with binary anode buffer layer. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1415 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10838-4

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