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Ternary blend all-polymer solar cells: enhanced performance and evidence of parallel-like bulk heterojunction mechanism

  • Polymers/Soft Matter Research Letter
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Abstract

All-polymer solar cells composed of binary blends of donor poly[4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)thiophen-2-yl)benzo[1,2-b;4,5-b′]dithiophene-2,6- diyl-alt-(4-(2-ethylhexanoyl)-thieno[3,4-b]thiophene-)-2–6-diyl)] (PBDTTT-CT ), and acceptor polymers naphthalene diimide-selenophene copolymer (PNDIS-HD) and perylene diimide-selenophene copolymer (PPDIS) had power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 1.3 and 2.1%, respectively. Ternary blend solar cells composed of [PBDTTT-CT][PNDIS-HD]1−x[PPDIS]x at 75 wt% PPDIS had a PCE of 3.2%, which is about a 50%–140% enhancement compared with the binary blend devices. Equality of the ternary blend short-circuit current to the sum of those of the binary blend devices, among other results, provided evidence of a parallel-like bulk heterojunction mechanism in the ternary blend solar cells. These results provide the first example of enhanced performance in ternary blend all-polymer solar cells.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Micah Glaz for his assistance in obtaining AFM images. This work was supported by the NSF (DMR-1409687). B.A.E.C. is a Clean Energy Institute (CEI) fellow.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemical Engineering and Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 98195-1750, USA

    Ye-Jin Hwang, Brett A. E. Courtright & Samson A. Jenekhe

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  1. Ye-Jin Hwang
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  2. Brett A. E. Courtright
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  3. Samson A. Jenekhe
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Correspondence to Samson A. Jenekhe.

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Hwang, YJ., Courtright, B.A.E. & Jenekhe, S.A. Ternary blend all-polymer solar cells: enhanced performance and evidence of parallel-like bulk heterojunction mechanism. MRS Communications 5, 229–234 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrc.2015.36

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