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18.01% Efficiency organic solar cell and 2.53% light utilization efficiency semitransparent organic solar cell enabled by optimizing PM6:Y6 active layer morphology

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Abstract

Optimizing the photoactive layer morphology is a simple, promising way to improve the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic solar cells (OSCs). Here, we compared different post-processing treatments on PM6:Y6 blend films and relevant effects on device performances, including as-cast, thermal annealing and solvent annealing. This solvent annealing processes can effectively improve the vertical distribution and aggregation of polymer donors and small molecule acceptors, then optimize the active layer film morphology, ultimately elevating PCE. Thus, one of champion efficiencies of 18.01% was achieved based on the PM6:Y6 binary OSCs. In addition, a relatively high light utilization efficiency (2.53%) was achieved when a transparent electrode made of Cu(1 nm) and Ag (15 nm) was utilized to fabricate a semitransparent OSC with a remarkable PCE of 13.07% and 19.33% average visible-light transmittance. These results demonstrated that carefully optimizing morphology of active layer is conducive to achieving a high-performance OSC.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (21925506), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U21A20331, 51773212, 81903743, 51875384), Ningbo S&T Innovation 2025 Major Special Programme (2018B10055), CAS Key Project of Frontier Science Research (QYZDB-SSW-SYS030), and Ningbo Natural Science Foundation (2021J192).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zhejiang Provincial Engineering Research Center of Energy Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology & Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China

    Kuibao Yu, Wei Song, Jinfeng Ge, Kanghui Zheng, Lin Xie, Zhenyu Chen, Yi Qiu, Ling Hong & Ziyi Ge

  2. Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Wei Song, Jinfeng Ge, Zhenyu Chen, Yi Qiu & Ziyi Ge

  3. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Taiyuan University of Science and Technology, Taiyuan, 030024, China

    Kuibao Yu, Kanghui Zheng & Cuirong Liu

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  1. Kuibao Yu
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  2. Wei Song
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  4. Kanghui Zheng
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  5. Lin Xie
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  8. Ling Hong
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  10. Ziyi Ge
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Correspondence to Ling Hong, Cuirong Liu or Ziyi Ge.

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Supporting information The supporting information is available online at http://chem.scichina.com and http://link.springer.com/journal/11426. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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11426_2022_1270_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

18.01% Efficiency Organic Solar Cell and 2.53% Light Utilization Efficiency Semitransparent Organic Solar Cell Enabled by Optimizing PM6:Y6 Active Layer Morphology

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Yu, K., Song, W., Ge, J. et al. 18.01% Efficiency organic solar cell and 2.53% light utilization efficiency semitransparent organic solar cell enabled by optimizing PM6:Y6 active layer morphology. Sci. China Chem. 65, 1615–1622 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-022-1270-5

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