End Group Tuning in Acceptor–Donor–Acceptor Nonfullerene Small Molecules for High Fill Factor Organic Solar Cells
Type
ArticleAuthors
Wadsworth, AndrewBristow, Helen
Hamid, Zeinab
Babics, Maxime
Gasparini, Nicola
Boyle, Colm W.
Zhang, Weimin
Dong, Yifan
Thorley, Karl J.
Neophytou, Marios
Ashraf, Raja Shahid
Durrant, James R.
Baran, Derya

McCulloch, Iain

KAUST Department
Chemical ScienceChemical Science Program
KAUST Solar Center
KAUST Solar Center (KSC)
Material Science and Engineering Program
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Date
2019-06-11Embargo End Date
2020-01-01Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/656291
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
High fill factors have only recently become commonplace in nonfullerene-based organic solar cells, with the balance of charge carrier mobilities often cited as the contributing factor. Here an end-group modification to a commonly used nonfullerene acceptor (O-IDTBR) is reported, in which the rhodanine end groups are replaced with dicyano moieties, resulting in the acceptor O-IDTBCN. This new acceptor affords significant improvement in the fill factor (73%) and photocurrent (19.8 mA cm−2) in organic solar cells with the low bandgap polymer PTB7-Th. A narrowing of the bandgap, as a result of greater push–pull hybridization, allows complementary absorption to the donor and thus improved photon harvesting. Additionally, the measurement of charge carrier mobilities and lifetimes in both systems reveal that the PTB7-Th:O-IDTBCN blend possesses more balanced charge carrier mobilities, and longer lifetimes. Morphology studies reveal a slightly greater degree of molecular mixing of the O-IDTBCN when blended with PTB7-Th, despite the greater and more balanced charge carrier mobilities in this blend.Citation
Wadsworth, A., Bristow, H., Hamid, Z., Babics, M., Gasparini, N., Boyle, C. W., … McCulloch, I. (2019). End Group Tuning in Acceptor–Donor–Acceptor Nonfullerene Small Molecules for High Fill Factor Organic Solar Cells. Advanced Functional Materials, 29(47), 1808429. doi:10.1002/adfm.201808429Sponsors
The authors thank KAUST for financial support, the Welsh Assembly Government Ser Solar Project, and acknowledge EC FP7 Project SC2 (610115), EC H2020 (643791), and EPSRC Projects EP/G037515/1, EP/M005143/1, and EP/L016702/1.Publisher
WileyJournal
Advanced Functional MaterialsAdditional Links
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/adfm.201808429ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1002/adfm.201808429