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Hot Hydrocarbon‐Solvent Slot‐Die Coating Enables High‐Efficiency Organic Solar Cells with Temperature‐Dependent Aggregation Behavior
Author(s) -
Zhao Heng,
Naveed Hafiz Bilal,
Lin Baojun,
Zhou Xiaobo,
Yuan Jian,
Zhou Ke,
Wu Hongbo,
Guo Renjun,
Scheel Manuel A.,
Chumakov Andrei,
Roth Stephan V.,
Tang Zheng,
MüllerBuschbaum Peter,
Ma Wei
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
advanced materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.707
H-Index - 527
eISSN - 1521-4095
pISSN - 0935-9648
DOI - 10.1002/adma.202002302
Subject(s) - chlorobenzene , materials science , organic solar cell , fabrication , chemical engineering , coating , energy conversion efficiency , environmentally friendly , roll to roll processing , organic electronics , photoactive layer , solar cell , solvent , nanotechnology , organic chemistry , composite material , polymer , optoelectronics , catalysis , chemistry , alternative medicine , transistor , voltage , ecology , pathology , engineering , biology , quantum mechanics , medicine , physics
Organic solar cells (OSCs) have made rapid progress in terms of their development as a sustainable energy source. However, record‐breaking devices have not shown compatibility with large‐scale production via solution processing in particular due to the use of halogenated environment‐threatening solvents. Here, slot‐die fabrication with processing involving hydrocarbon‐based solvents is used to realize highly efficient and environmentally friendly OSCs. Highly compatible slot‐die coating with roll‐to‐roll processing using halogenated (chlorobenzene (CB)) and hydrocarbon solvents (1,2,4‐trimethylbenzene (TMB) and ortho ‐xylene ( o ‐XY)) is used to fabricate photoactive films. Controlled solution and substrate temperatures enable similar aggregation states in the solution and similar kinetics processes during film formation. The optimized blend film nanostructures for different solvents in the highly efficient PM6:Y6 blend is adopted to show a similar morphology, which results in device efficiencies of 15.2%, 15.4%, and 15.6% for CB, TMB, and o‐XY solvents. This approach is successfully extended to other donor–acceptor combinations to demonstrate the excellent universality of this method. The results combine a method to optimize the aggregation state and film formation kinetics with the fabrication of OSCs with environmentally friendly solvents by slot‐die coating, which is a critical finding for the future development of OSCs in terms of their scalable production and high‐performance.