@article{d27b2b5ed8534613ba23ebf8c0caab4f,
title = "Effects of Flexible Conjugation-Break Spacers of Non-Conjugated Polymer Acceptors on Photovoltaic and Mechanical Properties of All-Polymer Solar Cells",
abstract = "HIGHLIGHTS: A series of non-conjugated acceptor polymers with flexible conjugation-break spacers (FCBSs) of different lengths were synthesized. The effect of FCBSs length on solubility of the acceptor polymers, and their photovoltaic and mechanical properties in all-polymer solar cells were explored. This work provides useful guidelines for the design of semiconducting polymers by introducing FCBS with proper length, which can giantly improved properties that are not possible to be achieved by the state-of-the-art fully conjugated polymers.ABSTRACT: All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) possess attractive merits including superior thermal stability and mechanical flexibility for large-area roll-to-roll processing. Introducing flexible conjugation-break spacers (FCBSs) into backbones of polymer donor ( P D) or polymer acceptor ( P A) has been demonstrated as an efficient approach to enhance both the photovoltaic (PV) and mechanical properties of the all-PSCs. However, length dependency of FCBS on certain all-PSC related properties has not been systematically explored. In this regard, we report a series of new non-conjugated P As by incorporating FCBS with various lengths (2, 4, and 8 carbon atoms in thioalkyl segments). Unlike common studies on so-called side-chain engineering, where longer side chains would lead to better solubility of those resulting polymers, in this work, we observe that the solubilities and the resulting photovoltaic/mechanical properties are optimized by a proper FCBS length ( i.e., C2) in P A named PYTS-C2. Its all-PSC achieves a high efficiency of 11.37%, and excellent mechanical robustness with a crack onset strain of 12.39%, significantly superior to those of the other P As. These results firstly demonstrate the effects of FCBS lengths on the PV performance and mechanical properties of the all-PSCs, providing an effective strategy to fine-tune the structures of P As for highly efficient and mechanically robust PSCs. [Image: see text] SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40820-022-00884-8.",
keywords = "All-polymer solar cells, Flexible conjugation-break spacers, Mechanical robustness, Polymer acceptors, Stretchability",
author = "Qiaonan Chen and Han, {Yung Hee} and Franco, {Leandro R.} and Marchiori, {Cleber F.N.} and Zewdneh Genene and Araujo, {C. Moyses} and Lee, {Jin Woo} and Phan, {Tan Ngoc Lan} and Jingnan Wu and Donghong Yu and Kim, {Dong Jun} and Kim, {Taek Soo} and Lintao Hou and Kim, {Bumjoon J.} and Ergang Wang",
note = "Funding Information: We thank the Swedish Research Council (2016-06146, 2019-02345), the Swedish Research Council Formas, the Swedish Energy Agency (52473-1), the Wallenberg Foundation (2017.0186 and 2016.0059) for financial support. This work was also supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017M3A7B8065584 and 2020R1A4A1018516). Support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61774077), the Key Projects of Joint Fund of Basic and Applied Basic Research Fund of Guangdong Province (2019B1515120073), and the Research Fund of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Intelligent Micro-Nano Optoelectronic Technology (No. 2020B1212030010). Support from Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research is fully acknowledged. LRF, CFNM and CMA acknowledge Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2020-05223), Swedish Energy Agency (grant no. 45420-1), as well as the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at National Supercomputer Centre at Link{\"o}ping University (NSC) for providing the computational infrastructure. Funding Information: We thank the Swedish Research Council (2016-06146, 2019-02345), the Swedish Research Council Formas, the Swedish Energy Agency (52473-1), the Wallenberg Foundation (2017.0186 and 2016.0059) for financial support. This work was also supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2017M3A7B8065584 and 2020R1A4A1018516). Support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61774077), the Key Projects of Joint Fund of Basic and Applied Basic Research Fund of Guangdong Province (2019B1515120073), and the Research Fund of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Intelligent Micro-Nano Optoelectronic Technology (No. 2020B1212030010). Support from Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research is fully acknowledged. LRF, CFNM and CMA acknowledge Swedish Research Council (grant no. 2020-05223), Swedish Energy Agency (grant no. 45420-1), as well as the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at National Supercomputer Centre at Link{\"o}ping University (NSC) for providing the computational infrastructure. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022, The Author(s).",
year = "2022",
month = aug,
day = "13",
doi = "10.1007/s40820-022-00884-8",
language = "English",
volume = "14",
journal = "Nano-Micro Letters",
issn = "2311-6706",
publisher = "Open Access Science Online",
number = "1",
}