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Insulating Polymers for Enhancing the Efficiency of Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells
Author(s) -
Wang Meng,
Liu Shenghua,
You Peng,
Wang Naixiang,
Tang Guanqi,
Miao Qian,
Yan Feng
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
solar rrl
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.544
H-Index - 37
ISSN - 2367-198X
DOI - 10.1002/solr.202000013
Subject(s) - active layer , organic solar cell , materials science , crystallinity , polymer solar cell , polymer , glass transition , polystyrene , energy conversion efficiency , chemical engineering , side chain , annealing (glass) , polymer chemistry , layer (electronics) , optoelectronics , nanotechnology , composite material , thin film transistor , engineering
A series of insulating polymers are used as additives in nonfullerene organic solar cells (OSCs) for the first time. A significant relative power conversion efficiency (PCE) enhancement of up to 16% is observed with an introduction of polystyrene for only 5.0 wt% into the active layer of OSCs. Other insulating polymers possessing linear nonconjugated backbones with different side chains are also incorporated into OSCs and the resultant PCE enhancement decreases with the decrease in the side chain size. Another important issue that is noted is the glass transition temperature of the polymer additive. When the glass transition temperature is higher than the thermal annealing temperature of the active layer, the polymer additive plays a negative effect on the device performance and the device efficiency decreases monotonically with the increase in addition amount. So the effect of the insulating polymer additives in nonfullerene OSCs can be attributed to the reconstruction of the active layer films, which increases the crystallinity, carrier mobility, and carrier lifetime of the organic semiconductors in the bulk heterojunction of the devices. This work provides a guideline for the selection of polymer additives in OSCs apart from the consideration on the optoelectronic property of the additives.