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15.3% efficiency all-small-molecule organic solar cells enabled by symmetric phenyl substitution

给体对称性苯基修饰实现效率高达15.3%的全小 分子有机太阳能电池

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Abstract

Synergistic optimization of donor-acceptor blend morphologyis a hurdle in the path of realizing efficient non-fullerene small-molecule organic solar cells (NFSM-OSCs) due to the anisotropic conjugated backbones of both donor and acceptor. Therefore, developing a facile molecular design strategy to effectively regulate the crystalline properties of photoactive materials, and thus, enable the optimization of blend morphology is of vital importance. In this study, a new donor molecule B1, comprising phenyl-substituted benzodithiophene (BDT) central unit, exhibits strong interaction with the non-fullerene acceptor BO-4Cl in comparison with its corresponding thiophene-substituted BDT-based material, BTR. As a result, the B1 is affected and induced from an edge-on to a face-on orientation by the acceptor, while the BTR and the acceptor behave individually for the similar molecular orientation in pristine and blend films according to grazing incidence wide angle X-ray scattering results. It means the donor-acceptor blend morphology is synergistically optimized in the B1 system, and the B1:BO-4Cl-based devices achieve an outstanding power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 15.3%, further certified to be 15.1% by the National Institute of Metrology, China. Our results demonstrate a simple and effective strategy to improve the crystalline properties of the donor molecule as well as synergistically optimize the morphology of the all-small-molecule system, leading to the high-performance NFSM-OSCs.

摘要

太阳能电池结构中给体和受体的各向异性使得调制优化共 混薄膜的形貌面临巨大挑战, 因而使得非富勒烯全小分子太阳能 电池很难实现高效率. 因此, 开发一种简便的分子设计策略有效地 调节光活性材料的结晶特性, 从而实现对共混形貌的协同调制变 得至关重要. 在本工作中, 我们设计合成了侧基苯基取代的新给体 分子B1. 与噻吩侧基取代给体小分子BTR相比, 侧基对称苯基取代 的B1具有更强的结晶性. B1与非富勒烯受体BO-4Cl共混制备全小 分子器件, GIWAXS测试发现在共混膜中B1的分子取向被受体分 子BO-4Cl显著诱导, B1优势分子取向由单纯膜中的edge-on转变为 共混膜中的face-on, 表明B1与BO-4Cl之间存在更强的相互作用. 基 于B1:BO-4Cl的器件获得了15.3%的能量转换效率, 经中国计量科 学研究院(NIM)认证为15.1%. 本工作结果提供了一种简单而有效 的策略来改善给体分子的结晶性能, 并实现活性层形貌的协同优 化, 从而获得了全小分子器件能量转化效率的突破.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the Basic and Applied Basic Research Major Program of Guangdong Province (2019B030302007), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51873217, 21734008, 51703228, 51961135103, 51773047 and 51903239).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Jinzhao Qin  (秦金钊), Cunbin An  (安存彬), Kangcqiao Ma  (马康桥), Tao Zhang  (张涛), Sunsun Li  (李荪荪), Kaihu Xian  (鲜开虎), Yong Cui  (崔勇), Huifeng Yao  (姚惠峰), Bowei Xu  (许博为), Chang He  (何畅) & Jianhui Hou  (侯剑辉)

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Jinzhao Qin  (秦金钊), Jianqi Zhang  (张建齐), Yang Yang  (杨扬), Kaihu Xian  (鲜开虎) & Jianhui Hou  (侯剑辉)

  3. Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, 100190, China

    Jianqi Zhang  (张建齐) & Yang Yang  (杨扬)

  4. School of Chemistry and Biology Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Shaoqing Zhang  (张少青)

  5. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Yabing Tang  (唐亚兵) & Wei Ma  (马伟)

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  1. Jinzhao Qin  (秦金钊)
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  5. Yang Yang  (杨扬)
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  6. Tao Zhang  (张涛)
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Contributions

Hou J and He C conceived and designed the experiments; An C and Ma K synthesized and characterized the molecules; Zhang J, Tang Y and Ma W performed the GIWAXS measurements; Qin J fabricated the devices; Yang Y carried out the TEM measurements; All authors contributed to the general discussion.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Cunbin An  (安存彬), Jianqi Zhang  (张建齐), Chang He  (何畅) or Jianhui Hou  (侯剑辉).

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Supplementary information

Experimental details and supporting data are available in the online version of the paper.

Jinzhao Qin received his BSc degree in the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Science and Technology of China. Now he is a PhD candidate in Prof. Jianhui Hou’s group in the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ICCAS). His current research focuses on organic photovoltaic devices.

Cunbin An received his PhD degree from Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in 2015. After one-year postdoctoral research in the same group, he joined ICCAS as an assistant professor. His current research focuses on developing conjugated materials for organic photovoltaics.

Jianqi Zhang received his PhD degree in polymer physics and chemistry at Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of sciences in 2010. After that, he did postdoctoral research at Technische Universität München (TUM). He has been an associate professor at the National Center of Nanoscience and Technology (NCNST) since 2017. His research interests focus on using wide- and small-angle X-ray scattering to study complex structure-performance relationships of photovoltaic systems.

Chang He has been a professor at ICCAS since 2019. She graduated with a BSc degree in 1997 from Xi’an Jiaotong University. She obtained her PhD degree in physical chemistry from ICCAS in 2007. Her research interests focus on solutionprocessible small molecule photovoltaic materials and the related devices.

Jianhui Hou received his PhD degree from ICCAS in 2006. Then he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in Prof. Yang Yang’s group at the University of California at Los Angeles. He joined the Solarmer Energy Inc. (USA) in 2008 as a team leader of research department. He became a full professor of ICCAS since 2010, and his research focuses on the design, synthesis and application of the organic/polymer photovoltaic materials.

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Qin, J., An, C., Zhang, J. et al. 15.3% efficiency all-small-molecule organic solar cells enabled by symmetric phenyl substitution. Sci. China Mater. 63, 1142–1150 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40843-020-1269-9

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