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Efficient and Air‐Stable Aqueous‐Processed Organic Solar Cells and Transistors: Impact of Water Addition on Processability and Thin‐Film Morphologies of Electroactive Materials
Author(s) -
Lee Changyeon,
Lee Hae Rang,
Choi Joonhyeong,
Kim Youngkwon,
Nguyen Thanh Luan,
Lee Wonho,
Gautam Bhoj,
Liu Xiang,
Zhang Kai,
Huang Fei,
Oh Joon Hak,
Woo Han Young,
Kim Bumjoon J.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
advanced energy materials
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 10.08
H-Index - 220
eISSN - 1614-6840
pISSN - 1614-6832
DOI - 10.1002/aenm.201802674
Subject(s) - materials science , aqueous solution , solubility , energy conversion efficiency , polymer , chemical engineering , fabrication , nanotechnology , thin film , conjugated system , organic chemistry , optoelectronics , chemistry , composite material , engineering , medicine , alternative medicine , pathology
The authors report the development of a desirable aqueous process for ecofriendly fabrication of efficient and stable organic field‐effect transistors (eco‐OFETs) and polymer solar cells (eco‐PSCs). Intriguingly, the addition of a typical antisolvent, water, to ethanol is found to remarkably enhance the solubility of oligoethylene glycol (OEG) side chain‐based electroactive materials (e.g., the highly crystalline conjugated polymer PPDT2FBT‐A and the fullerene monoadduct PC 61 BO 12 ). A water–ethanol cosolvent with a 1:1 molar ratio provides an increased solubility of PPDT2FBT‐A from 2.3 to 42.9 mg mL −1 and that of PC 61 BO 12 from 0.3 to 40.5 mg mL −1 . Owing to the improved processability, efficient eco‐OFETs with a hole mobility of 2.0 × 10 −2 cm 2 V −1 s −1 and eco‐PSCs with a power conversion efficiency of 2.05% are successfully fabricated. In addition, the eco‐PSCs fabricated with water–ethanol processing are highly stable under ambient conditions, showing the great potential of this new process for industrial scale application. To better understand the underlying role of water addition, the influence of water addition on the thin‐film morphologies and the performance of the eco‐OFETs and eco‐PSCs are studied. Additionally, it is demonstrated that the application of the aqueous process can be extended to a variety of other OEG‐based material systems.