Skip to main content
Log in

Ternary solvent strategy enhancing the photovoltaic performance of ternary polymer solar cells

  • Published:
Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this contribution, we adopted ternary solvent strategy to improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of ternary polymer solar cells (PSCs)-based PBDB-T:ITIC:PC71BM photovoltaic system. The results showed that the PCE of PSCs prepared from ternary solvent was significantly higher than that prepared from binary solvent. Moreover, we also optimized the performance of ternary PBDB-T:ITIC:PC71BM solar cells by regulating the ratios of acceptors, and found this ternary PSCs showing the highest efficiency at 1:0.8:0.2. Through the analysis of the morphology and optical properties of active layers as well as the electrical properties of PSCs, the enhanced PCE of ternary PSCs was mainly due to the improvement of short-circuit current (JSC). Further, the enhanced JSC could be attributed to the optimized aggregation scale and phase separation structure of ternary active layer at the appropriate ratio of donor and acceptors. Which was conducive to enhance the charge mobility and charge transport equilibrium. Meanwhile, the charge recombination process could be suppressed well.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

Data are available on request from the authors.

References

  1. T. Kim, J.-H. Kim, T.E. Kang, C. Lee, H. Kang, M. Shin, C. Wang, B. Ma, U. Jeong, T.-S. Kim, B.J. Kim, Flexible, highly effificient all-polymer solar cells. Nat. Commun. 6, 8547 (2015)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. F.C. Krebs, Roll-to-roll fabrication of monolithic large-area polymer solar cells free from indium-tin-oxide. Sol. Energy. Mater. Sol. Cells 93, 1636–1641 (2009)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Z. Zheng, J. Wang, P. Bi, J. Ren, Y. Wang, Y. Yang, X. Liu, S. Zhang, J. Hou, Tandem organic solar cell with 20.2% efficiency. Joule 6, 171–184 (2022)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. M. Zhou, C. Liao, Y. Duan, X. Xu, L. Yu, R. Li, Q. Peng, 19.10% efficiency and 80.5% fill factor layer-by-layer organic solar cells realized by 4-bis(2-thienyl)pyrrole-2,5-dione based polymer additives for inducing vertical segregation morphology. Adv. Mater. 35, 2208279 (2023)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. C. Li, J. Zhou, J. Song, J. Xu, H. Zhang, X. Zhang, J. Guo, L. Zhu, D. Wei, G. Han, J. Min, Y. Zhang, Z. Xie, Y. Yi, H. Yan, F. Gao, F. Liu, Y. Sun, Non-fullerene acceptors with branched side chains and improved molecular packing to exceed 18% efficiency in organic solar cells. Nat. Energy 6, 605–613 (2021)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. X. Song, P. Sun, D. Sun, Y. Xu, Y. Liu, W. Zhu, Investigation of tunable halogen-free solvent engineering on aggregation and miscibility towards high-performance organic solar cells. Nano Energy 91, 106678 (2022)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. J. Wang, Z. Zheng, Y. Zu, Y. Wang, X. Liu, S. Zhang, M. Zhang, J. Hou, A tandem organic photovoltaic cell with 19.6% efficiency enabled by light distribution control. Adv. Mater. 33, 2102787 (2021)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. K. Chang, Y. Li, G. Du, M. Zhong, P. Yang, Y. Zhu, F. He, B. Mi, X. Zhao, W. Deng, Efficient non-fullerene organic photovoltaics printed by electrospray via solvent engineering. ACS Appl. Mater. Inter. 24, 27405–27415 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. X. Ma, W. Gao, J. Yu, Q. An, M. Zhang, Z. Hu, J. Wang, W. Tang, C. Yang, F. Zhang, Ternary nonfullerene polymer solar cells with efficiency >13.7% by integrating the advantages of the materials and two binary cells. Energy Environ. Sci. 11, 2134–2141 (2018)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. W. Peng, Y. Lin, S.Y. Jeong, Z. Genene, A. Magomedov, H.Y. Woo, C. Chen, W. Wahyudi, Q. Tao, J. Deng, Y. Han, V. Getautis, W. Zhu, T.D. Anthopoulos, E. Wang, Over 18% ternary polymer solar cells enabled by a terpolymer as the third component. Nano Energy 92, 106681 (2022)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. R. Sun, T. Wang, Q. Fan, A.K.Y. Jen, E. Spiecker, J. Min, 18.2%-efficient ternary all-polymer organic solar cells with improved stability enabled by a chlorinated guest polymer acceptor. Joule 7, 221–237 (2023)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. R. Hu, W. Zhang, Z. Xiao, J. Zhang, X. Su, G. Wang, J. Chen, X. He, R. Wang, Charge photogeneration and recombination in ternary polymer solar cells based on compatible acceptors. J. Mater. Sci. 56, 14181–14195 (2021)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. H. Wang, P. Chao, H. Chen, Y. Zhu, W. Zheng, F. He, Enhancement of all-polymer solar cells by addition of a chlorinated polymer and formation of an energy cascade in a nonhalogenated solvent. ACS Appl. Mater. Inter. 13, 1944–8252 (2021)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. H.-R. Bai, Q. An, M. Jiang, H.S. Ryu, J. Yang, X.-J. Zhou, H.-F. Zhi, C. Yang, X. Li, H.Y. Woo, J.-L. Wang, Asymmetric-symmetric acceptors enable efficient ternary organic solar cells with thin and 300 nm thick active layers simultaneously. Adv. Funct. Mater. 32, 2200807 (2022)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. H. Zhao, B. Lin, J. Xue, H.B. Naveed, C. Zhao, X. Zhou, K. Zhou, H. Wu, Y. Cai, D. Yun, Z. Tang, W. Ma, Kinetics manipulation enables high-performance thick ternary organic solar cells via R2R-compatible slot-die coating. Adv. Mater. 34, 2105114 (2022)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. P.P. Khlyabich, A.E. Rudenko, R.A. Street, B.C. Thompson, Influence of polymer compatibility on the open-circuit voltage in ternary blend bulk heterojunction solar cells. ACS Appl. Mater. Inter. 6, 9913–9919 (2014)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. R. Hu, X. Su, H. Liu, Y. Liu, M.-M. Huo, W. Zhang, Recycled indium tin oxide transparent conductive electrode for polymer solar cells. J Mater. Sci. 55, 1140–11410 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. R. Hu, L. Zhang, J. Peng, W. Zhang, Comparative study of charge characteristics in PCPDTBT:fullerenes. Chem. Phys. 540, 111004 (2021)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. J. Kim, J.B. Park, W.-H. Lee, J.-H. Kim, D.-H. Hwang, I.-N. Kang, High-performance fluorine-containing BDT-based copolymer for organic solar cells with a high open circuit voltage. J Polym. Sci. Pol. Chem. 55, 2506–2512 (2017)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. L. Lu, T. Xu, W. Chen, E.S. Landry, L. Yu, Ternary blend polymer solar cells with enhanced power conversion efficiency. Nat. Photon. 8, 716–722 (2014)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Z. Kan, L. Colella, E.V. Canesi, A. Vorobiev, V. Skrypnychuk, G. Terraneo, D.R. Barbero, C. Bertarelli, R.C.I. MacKenzief, P.E. Keivanidis, Charge transport control via polymer polymorph modulation in ternary organic photovoltaic composites. J Mater. Chem. A 4, 1195 (2016)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. W. Bei, Y. Fu, Y. Chi, Z. Rui, Q. Yang, Y. Han, Z. Xie, Insight into the role of PC71BM on enhancing the photovoltaic performance of ternary organic solar cells. Front. Chem. 6, 198 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. S. Zhang, L. Ye, H. Zhang, J. Hou, Green-solvent-processable organic solar cells. Mater. Today 19, 533–543 (2016)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. R. Hu, Z. Liu, J. Zhang, L. Tian, G. Wang, J. Chen, K. He, R. Wang, Morphology optimization and charge characteristics in PM6-based solar cells via ternary solvent processing. J Mater. Sci: Mater. Electron. 33, 5370–5379 (2022)

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. D. Zhang, P. Fan, J. Shi, Y. Zheng, J. Zhong, J. Yu, Control of vertical phase separation in high performance non-fullerene organic solar cell by introducing oscillating stratification preprocessing. Nano Res. 14, 1319–1325 (2021)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. P. Bi, T. Xiao, X. Yang, M. Niu, Z. Wen, K. Zhang, W. Qin, S.K. So, G. Lu, X. Hao, H. Liu, Regulating the vertical phase distribution by fullerene-derivative in high performance ternary organic solar cells. Nano Energy 46, 81–90 (2018)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  27. Q. Li, Y. Sun, X. Xue, S. Yue, K. Liu, M. Azam, C. Yang, Z. Wang, F. Tan, Y. Chen, Insights on charge separation and transport in ternary polymer solar cells. ACS Appl. Mater. Inter. 11, 3299–3307 (2019)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. W. Zhang, R. Hu, D. Li, M.-M. Huo, X.C. Ai, J.P. Zhang, Primary dynamics of exciton and charge photogeneration in solvent vapor annealed P3HT/PCBM films. J Phys. Chem. C 116, 4298–4310 (2012)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Y. Zheng, S. Li, D. Zheng, J. Yu, Effects of different polar solvents for solvent vapor annealing treatment on the performance of polymer solar cells. Org. Electron. 15, 2647–2653 (2014)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  30. L. Liu, H. Zhang, B. Xiao, Y. Liu, B. Xu, C. Wang, S. Wen, E. Zhou, G. Chen, C. Im, W. Tian, Effects of BTA2 as the third component on the charge carrier generation and recombination behavior of PTB7:PC71BM photovoltaic system. Front. Chem. Sci. Eng. 15, 127–137 (2021)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This research was funded by the Genera Program of Chongqing Natural Science Foundation (CSTB2022NSCQ-MSX0309, CSTB2022NSCQ-MSX0545), the Science and Technology Research Program of the Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (KJQN202001323, KJZD-K202201303), the General Program of Yongchuan Natural Science Foundation (2022yc-jckx20017).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

RH designed and directed the research. YL contributed to atomic force microscopy and steady-state absorption spectroscopy. RH contributed to J-V, EQE, and EIS measurements. Rong Hu wrote the manuscript composition, and all authors contributed to discuss the results.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rong Hu.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hu, R., Liu, Y. Ternary solvent strategy enhancing the photovoltaic performance of ternary polymer solar cells. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 34, 1467 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10888-8

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-023-10888-8

Navigation