High-efficiency and air-stable P3HT-based polymer solar cells with a new non-fullerene acceptor.
Solution-processed organic photovoltaics (OPV) offer the attractive prospect of low-cost, light-weight and environmentally benign solar energy production. The highest efficiency OPV at present use low-bandgap donor polymers, many of which suffer from problems with stability and synthetic scalability. They also rely on fullerene-based acceptors, which themselves have issues with cost, stability and limited spectral absorption. Here we present a new non-fullerene acceptor that has been specifically designed to give improved performance alongside the wide bandgap donor poly(3-hexylthiophene), a polymer with significantly better prospects for commercial OPV due to its relative scalability and stability. Thanks to the well-matched optoelectronic and morphological properties of these materials, efficiencies of 6.4% are achieved which is the highest reported for fullerene-free P3HT devices. In addition, dramatically improved air stability is demonstrated relative to other high-efficiency OPV, showing the excellent potential of this new material combination for future technological applications.
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Sarah
S
Holliday
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Raja Shahid
RS
Ashraf
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Andrew
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9050-0599
A
Wadsworth
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Derya
D
Baran
Department of Physics, Government College University, Lahore 54000, Pakistan.
Syeda Amber
SA
Yousaf
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Christian B
CB
Nielsen
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Ching-Hong
CH
Tan
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
Stoichko D
SD
Dimitrov
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, 476 Lomita Mall, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Zhengrong
Z
Shang
Institute of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (I-MEET), Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
Nicola
N
Gasparini
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Solar and Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center (SPERC), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
Maha
M
Alamoudi
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Solar and Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center (SPERC), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
Frédéric
F
Laquai
Institute of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (I-MEET), Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nuremberg, 91058 Erlangen, Germany.
Christoph J
CJ
Brabec
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University, 476 Lomita Mall, Stanford, California 94305, USA.
Alberto
A
Salleo
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
James R
JR
Durrant
Department of Chemistry and Centre for Plastic Electronics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.|King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Solar and Photovoltaics Engineering Research Center (SPERC), Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
Iain
I
McCulloch