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A guest-assisted molecular-organization approach for >17% efficiency organic solar cells using environmentally friendly solvents

Nature Energy volume 6, pages 1045–1053 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

The power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of laboratory-sized organic solar cells (OSCs), usually processed from low-boiling-point and toxic solvents, have reached high values of over 18%. However, there is usually a notable drop of the PCEs when green solvents are used, limiting practical development of OSCs. Herein, we obtain certificated PCEs over 17% in OSCs processed from a green solvent paraxylene (PX) by a guest-assisted assembly strategy, where a third component (guest) is employed to manipulate the molecular interaction of the binary blend. In addition, the high-boiling-point green solvent PX also enables us to deposit a uniform large-area module (36 cm2) with a high efficiency of over 14%. The strong molecular interaction between the host and guest molecules also enhances the operational stability of the devices. Our guest-assisted assembly strategy provides a unique approach to develop large-area and high-efficiency OSCs processed from green solvents, paving the way for industrial development of OSCs.

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Fig. 1: Chemical structures and structural characterization of the acceptors.
Fig. 2: Blend film crystalline properties and intra- and intermolecular interactions between Y6 and BTO.
Fig. 3: Schematic illustration of BTO-enabling formation of highly crystalline Y6 from high-boiling-point solvents.
Fig. 4: Photovoltaic performance of the devices.
Fig. 5: Non-halogenated solvent-processed module and device stability.

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The authors declare that the experimental data that support the findings of this paper are available within the article and its Supplementary Information files. Other findings in this study are available from the corresponding authors on reasonable request. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We thank O. Inganäs, J. Bergqvist and T. Osterberg for helpful discussions. We thank J.D. Zhang, H.X. Li and Z.X. Peng for helpful measurement of 2D GIWAXS in the Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (BSRF) 1W1A and Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) BL14B for the revised manuscript. Y.W.L. acknowledges the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 51922074, 22075194, 51673138 and 51820105003), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant no. 2020YFB1506400), the Natural Science Foundation of the Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions of China (grant no. 20KJA430010), the Tang Scholar, the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD), Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science and Technology for financial support. H.Y.C. acknowledges the Postgraduate Research and Practice Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (grant no. KYCX21_2939) for financial support. L.K., S.A. and J.B. acknowledge the Czech Science Foundation (grant no. GA18-12925S) for financial support. The research at Linköping was supported by the Swedish Energy Agency Energimyndigheten (grant nos. 48382-1 and 52474-1), the Swedish Research Council VR (grant nos. 2016-06146, 2018-05484 and 2018-06048), the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linköping University (faculty grant no. SFO-Mat-LiU #2009-00971), the Swedish Research Council FORMAS (grant no. 2019-01071), Åforsk and Olle Engkvists Stiftelse (grant no. 196-0134). F.G. acknowledges the Stiftelsen för Strategisk Forskning through a Future Research Leader programme (FFL18-0322).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Haiyang Chen, Rui Zhang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Advanced Optoelectronic Materials, Suzhou Key Laboratory of Novel Semiconductor-optoelectronics Materials and Devices, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

    Haiyang Chen, Xiaobin Chen, Guang Zeng, Ben Zhang, Weijie Chen, Guiying Xu, Yaowen Li & Yongfang Li

  2. Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM), Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Rui Zhang & Feng Gao

  3. Institute of Macromolecular Chemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

    Libor Kobera, Sabina Abbrent & Jiri Brus

  4. Department of Energy Engineering, School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, Perovtronics Research Center, Low Dimensional Carbon Materials Center, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, Republic of Korea

    Jiyeon Oh, So-Huei Kang & Changduk Yang

  5. MOE Key Laboratory of Low-grade Energy Utilization Technologies and Systems, CQU-NUS Renewable Energy Materials & Devices Joint Laboratory, School of Energy & Power Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

    Shanshan Chen

  6. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences; Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jianhui Hou & Yongfang Li

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Contributions

H.C. and R.Z. contributed equally to this work. F.G., Yaowen Li and Yongfang Li conceived the project, H.C. developed the new material BTO and contributed to the synthesis of the material Y6. R.Z. conceived the morphological evolution process and mechanism of manipulating molecular organization. R.Z. measured the in-situ absorption spectra and performed the results analysis. R.Z. and H.C. measured the solution solubility and performed the results analysis. L.K., S.A. and J.B. measured the 2D NMR and performed the results analysis. X.C., B.Z. and G.Z. made the devices. H.C., R.Z., X.C., G.X. and J.H. participated in the characterizations of materials and devices. J.O., S.-H.K., S.C. and C.Y. conducted the GIWAXS measurements. H.C., R.Z., W.C., F.G., Yaowen Li and Yongfang Li contributed to the results analysis. H.C., R.Z., F.G. and Yaowen Li wrote the manuscript. F.G., Yaowen Li and Yongfang Li supervised the project. All authors discussed the results and commented on the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Feng Gao or Yaowen Li.

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Peer review information Nature Energy thanks Jun Liu and the other, anonymous, reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Chen, H., Zhang, R., Chen, X. et al. A guest-assisted molecular-organization approach for >17% efficiency organic solar cells using environmentally friendly solvents. Nat Energy 6, 1045–1053 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-021-00923-5

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