Abstract
The manipulation of the morphology of the active layers is crucial for improving the performance of organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. In particular, the development of non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) has led to a large number of new materials with more complex interactions. Therefore, the investigation on the morphology control mechanism is the key aspect in providing guidance for material design and device optimization. In this study, the film morphology optimization using 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO) additive and a ternary fullerene acceptor strategy have been carried out based on the PCE10:ITIC blends. It is seen that suitable amount of DIO helps to increase the crystallization of the blended thin film. However, excessive DIO elevates the crystallization-induced phase separation and the domain size can exceed the exciton diffusion length, leading to efficiency drop. The addition of fullerene acceptor can improve the carrier transport of the blends, and its presence could retard the excessive phase separation induced by DIO additive. Under the joint optimization of the solvent additive and PC71BM acceptor, the film morphology achieves a balance between crystallization and phase separation scales, the exciton diffusion and carrier transport are also optimized, and the short-circuit current (JSC) and fill factor (FF) of the device can be improved significantly.
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Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51973110, 21734009, 21905102 and 22109094), the National Key R&D Program of China (Nos. 2020YFB1505500 and 2020YFB1505502), the Program of Shanghai Science and Technology Commission science and technology innovation action plan (Nos. 20ZR1426200, 20511103800, 20511103802 and 20511103803), the Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province (No. ZR2019LFG005), the Key research project of Shandong Province (No. 2020CXGC010403), the Center of Hydrogen Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. We thank Cheng Wang and Chenhui Zhu from Advanced Light Source for providing X-ray scattering tests, which were carried out at beamline 7.3.3 and 11.0.1.2 at the Advanced Light Source, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, supported by the DOE, Office of Science, and Office of Basic Energy Sciences.
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Zhu, L., Zhang, QZ., Ding, H. et al. Unraveling the Effect of Solvent Additive and Fullerene Component on Morphological Control in Organic Solar Cells. Chin J Polym Sci 40, 1604–1612 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-022-2807-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-022-2807-0