Flow-enhanced solution printing of all-polymer solar cells.
Morphology control of solution coated solar cell materials presents a key challenge limiting their device performance and commercial viability. Here we present a new concept for controlling phase separation during solution printing using an all-polymer bulk heterojunction solar cell as a model system. The key aspect of our method lies in the design of fluid flow using a microstructured printing blade, on the basis of the hypothesis of flow-induced polymer crystallization. Our flow design resulted in a ∼90% increase in the donor thin film crystallinity and reduced microphase separated donor and acceptor domain sizes. The improved morphology enhanced all metrics of solar cell device performance across various printing conditions, specifically leading to higher short-circuit current, fill factor, open circuit voltage and significantly reduced device-to-device variation. We expect our design concept to have broad applications beyond all-polymer solar cells because of its simplicity and versatility.
1] Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA [2] Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Ying
Y
Diao
1] Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA [2] Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Yan
Y
Zhou
Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Tadanori
T
Kurosawa
Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Leo
0000000311825537
L
Shaw
Advanced Light Source, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Stanford, Berkeley 94720, USA.
Cheng
0000000171925471
C
Wang
Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Steve
S
Park
College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Yikun
Y
Guo
Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Julia A
JA
Reinspach
Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Kevin
K
Gu
1] Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA [2] Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Xiaodan
X
Gu
Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Benjamin C K
BC
Tee
1] Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA [2] School of Chemical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), Suwon 440-746, Republic of Korea.
Changhyun
C
Pang
1] Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA [2] Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Hongping
H
Yan
College of Chemistry, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Dahui
D
Zhao
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Michael F
MF
Toney
1] Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA [2] Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden, Dresden University of Technology, 01062 Dresden, Germany.
Stefan C B
SC
Mannsfeld
1] Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA [2] Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA.
Zhenan
Z
Bao