Challenging PM6-like donor polymers for pairing with a Y-type state-of-the-art acceptor in binary blends for bulk heterojunction solar cells

Wei Xu, Wei He, Guojuan Li, Jingnan Wu, Cheng Yang, Zhong Cao, Pei Cheng, Hongxiang Li*, Zhengkun Du, Donghong Yu

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Being fluorine-free and a high performance material as a small organic acceptor molecule, BTP-eC9 has been well mixed with BDT-based PM6 donor polymers for providing satisfactory photovoltaic properties, especially towards future large scale/large area solar cell production. However, as one of the key electrical outputs from such binary active layer materials, the open circuit voltage (VOC) was limited to ca. 0.84 V, which needs to be further improved for BTP-eC9 to have a bright future. This paper focuses on the molecular design of alkylthio- and alkoxy-phenyl flanked benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-based conjugated polymers (PBDT-PS-ttTPD or P10 for short and PBDT-PO-ttTPD or P11), which were successfully synthesized and applied as donor materials for pairing with BTP-eC9 in organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. By fine-tuning the side chains of the benzodithiophene (BDT) moiety, such non-fullerene OPV devices with normal configuration demonstrate an attractively high open circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.89 and 0.87 V in P10/BTP-eC9 and P11/BTP-eC9 based binary single bulk heterojunction OPV devices, while still maintaining an excellent JSC of 22.7 and 20.0 mA cm−2 with a final power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.93% and 9.37%, respectively. The alkylthio-phenyl chain substituted BDT polymer exhibits better photovoltaic performance in all aspects than the alternative with alkoxy chains due to the synergistic effect of the alkylthio-phenyl flanked BDT, TPD, and π-bridge (thieno[3,2-b]thiophene).

Original languageEnglish
JournalPhysical Chemistry Chemical Physics
Volume25
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)2916-2925
Number of pages10
ISSN1463-9076
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Royal Society of Chemistry.

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Challenging PM6-like donor polymers for pairing with a Y-type state-of-the-art acceptor in binary blends for bulk heterojunction solar cells'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this