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Improving current and mitigating energy loss in ternary organic photovoltaics enabled by two well-compatible small molecule acceptors

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Abstract

Ternary organic photovoltaic (OPV) strategy is an effective but facile approach to enhance the photovoltaic performance for single-junction devices. Herein, a series of ternary OPVs were fabricated by employing a wide bandgap donor (PBDB-TF) and two acceptor-donor-acceptor (A-D-A)-type nonfullerene small molecule acceptors (NF-SMAs, called F-2Cl and 3TT-OCIC). As the third component, the near-infrared SMA, 3TT-OCIC, has complementary absorption spectrum, narrow bandgap and well-compatible crystallization property to the host acceptor (F-2Cl) for efficient ternary OPVs. With these, the optimal ternary devices yield significantly enhanced power conversion efficiency of 15.23%, one of the very few examples with PCE higher than 15% other than Y6 systems. This is mainly attributed to the increased short-circuit current density of 24.92 mA cm−2 and dramatically decreased energy loss of 0.53 eV. This work presents a successful example for simultaneously improving current, minimizing energy loss and together with modifying the morphology of active layers in OPVs, which will contribute to the further construction of high performance ternary OPVs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2019YFA0705900, 2016YFA0200200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21935007, 51873089, 51773095), Tianjin city (20JCZDJC00740, 17JCJQJC44500) and 111 Project (B12015).

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory and Institute of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, The Centre of Nanoscale Science and Technology and Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials, Institute of Polymer Chemistry, Renewable Energy Conversion and Storage Center, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Yanna Sun, Huan-Huan Gao, Simin Wu, Lingxian Meng, Xiangjian Wan, Ziqi Guo, Shitong Li, Hongtao Zhang, Chenxi Li & Yongsheng Chen

  2. Center for Advanced Low-dimension Materials, Stage Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China

    Mengyang Li & Zaifei Ma

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  1. Yanna Sun
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Correspondence to Yongsheng Chen.

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11426_2020_9921_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Improving Current and Mitigating Energy Loss in Ternary Organic Photovoltaics Enabled by Two Well-Compatible Small Molecule Acceptors

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Sun, Y., Gao, HH., Wu, S. et al. Improving current and mitigating energy loss in ternary organic photovoltaics enabled by two well-compatible small molecule acceptors. Sci. China Chem. 64, 608–615 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-020-9921-4

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