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P-doped all-small-molecule organic solar cells with power conversion efficiency of 17.73%

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Abstract

All-small organic solar cells (ASM OSCs) inherit the advantages of the distinct merits of small molecules, such as well-defined structures and less batch-to-batch variation. In comparison with the rapid development of polymer-based OSCs, more efforts are needed to devote to improving the performance of ASM OSCs to close the performance gap between ASM and polymer-based OSCs. Herein, a well-known p-dopant named fluoro-7,7,8,8-tetracyano-p-quinodimethane (FTCNQ) was introduced to a high-efficiency system of HD-1:BTP-eC9, and a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 17.15% was achieved due to the improved electrical properties as well as better morphology of the active layer, supported by the observed higher fill factor (FF) of 79.45% and suppressed non-radiative recombination loss. Furthermore, combining with the further morphology optimization from solvent additive of 1-iodonaphthalene (IN) in the blend film, the HD-1:BTP-eC9-based device with the synergistic effects of both FTCNQ and IN demonstrates a remarkable PCE of 17.73% (certified as 17.49%), representing the best result of binary ASM OSCs to date.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China (MoST, 2022YFB4200400, 2019YFA0705900) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21935007, 52025033, 51873089), Tianjin city (20JCZDJC00740, 22JCQNJC00530), 111 Project (B12015), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, Nankai University (023-ZB22000105, 020-ZB22000110, 020-92220002), and Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations. We thank Yuanyuan Jiang and Prof. Xiaozhang Zhu for the UPS measurement.

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

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

    Wanying Feng, Kangqiao Ma, Guangkun Song, Huazhe Liang, Shudi Lu, Chenxi Li, Xiangjian Wan, Zhaoyang Yao & Yongsheng Chen

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, National Institute for Advanced Materials, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Tianyin Shao, Guankui Long & Bin Kan

  3. Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility, Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100043, China

    Yu Chen

  4. State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Guankui Long

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  1. Wanying Feng
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Correspondence to Bin Kan or Yongsheng Chen.

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Feng, W., Ma, K., Song, G. et al. P-doped all-small-molecule organic solar cells with power conversion efficiency of 17.73%. Sci. China Chem. 66, 2371–2379 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-023-1616-2

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