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High-efficiency organic solar cells enabled by an alcohol-washable solid additive

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Abstract

The solvent additive strategy has been widely utilized to boost the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells (OSCs). However, the residual solvent additive in the active layer tends to induce a gradual morphology degradation and further influences the long-term stability of OSCs. Here, a solid additive, 1,4-diiodobenzene (DIB), was introduced to fabricate efficient OSCs. We found that the treatment of DIB can lead to optimized morphology to form a bicontinuous network with intensified intermolecular packing in the donor and acceptor phases. Notably, DIB can be easily removed from the active layer via a simple alcohol washing process and no further post-thermal annealing is needed, which is desirable for large-scale manufacturing of OSCs. As a result, high efficiencies of 17.47% for PM6:Y6 and 18.13% (certified as 17.7%) for PM6:BTP-eC9 binary OSCs are achieved, which are among the highest efficiencies reported for binary OSCs thus far. Moreover, OSCs fabricated with DIB also exhibit superior stability compared with the as-cast and traditional solvent additive processed devices. Additionally, DIB was successfully applied in different active layers, manifesting its general applicability. This work provides a feasible approach to enhance both the efficiency and stability of OSCs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52003013, 21734001, 51825301) and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (BX20190023). H. W. Y acknowledges the financial support by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of Korea (2016M1A2A2940911, 2019R1A6A1A11044070). The authors thank Prof. Yanlin Song (ICCAS) for the assistance with optical microscope measurements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Yuanpeng Xie, Yunhao Cai, Xiaopeng Duan & Yanming Sun

  2. Department of Chemistry, College of Science, KU-KIST Graduate School of Converging Science and Technology, Korea University, Seoul, 136-713, Korea

    Hwa Sook Ryu & Han Young Woo

  3. College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Lili Han & Donghui Wei

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  1. Yuanpeng Xie
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  2. Hwa Sook Ryu
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  4. Yunhao Cai
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  5. Xiaopeng Duan
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Correspondence to Yunhao Cai, Han Young Woo or Yanming Sun.

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Xie, Y., Ryu, H.S., Han, L. et al. High-efficiency organic solar cells enabled by an alcohol-washable solid additive. Sci. China Chem. 64, 2161–2168 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-021-1121-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-021-1121-y

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