Balancing the Efficiency and Synthetic Accessibility of Organic Solar Cells with Isomeric Acceptor Engineering

Qianguang Yang; Haiyan Chen; Jie Lv; Peihao Huang; Deman Han; Wanyuan Deng; Kuan Sun; Manish Kumar; Sein Chung; Kilwon Cho; Dingqin Hu; Haiyan Dong; Li Shao; Fuqing Zhao; Zeyun Xiao; Zhipeng Kan; Shirong Lu

doi:10.1002/advs.202207678

Balancing the Efficiency and Synthetic Accessibility of Organic Solar Cells with Isomeric Acceptor Engineering

Adv Sci (Weinh). 2023 Jul;10(20):e2207678. doi: 10.1002/advs.202207678. Epub 2023 May 12.

Authors

Qianguang Yang^{1

2}, Haiyan Chen^{1

3}, Jie Lv^{1

4}, Peihao Huang¹, Deman Han⁵, Wanyuan Deng⁶, Kuan Sun³, Manish Kumar⁷, Sein Chung⁸, Kilwon Cho⁸, Dingqin Hu¹, Haiyan Dong¹, Li Shao^{1

3}, Fuqing Zhao¹, Zeyun Xiao^{1

2}, Zhipeng Kan⁹, Shirong Lu^{1

3

5}

Affiliations

¹ Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology, Chongqing School, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS Chongqing), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing, 400714, P. R. China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China.
³ Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, P. R. China.
⁴ Hoffmann Institute of Advanced Materials, Shenzhen Polytechnic, 7098 Liuxian Boulevard, Shenzhen, 518055, P. R. China.
⁵ Department of Material Science and Technology, Taizhou University, Taizhou, 318000, P. R. China.
⁶ Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology Guangzhou, Beijing, 510641, P. R. China.
⁷ Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, 37673, North Korea.
⁸ Department of Chemical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, 37673, South Korea.
⁹ School of Physical Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, P. R. China.

Abstract

With the continuous development of organic semiconductor materials and on-going improvement of device technology, the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic solar cells (OSCs) have surpassed the threshold of 19%. Now, the low production cost of organic photovoltaic materials and devices have become an imperative demand for its practical application and future commercialization. Herein, the feasibility of simplified synthesis for cost-effective small-molecule acceptors via end-cap isomeric engineering is demonstrated, and two constitutional isomers, BTP-m-4Cl and BTP-o-4Cl, are synthesized and compared in parallel. These two non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) have very similar optoelectronic properties but nonuniform morphological and crystallographic characteristics. Consequently, the OSCs composed of PM6:BTP-m-4Cl realize PCE of 17.2%, higher than that of the OSCs with PM6:BTP-o-4Cl (≈16%). When ternary OSCs are fabricated with PM6:BTP-m-4Cl:BTP-o-4Cl, the averaged PCE value reaches 17.95%, presenting outstanding photovoltaic performance. Most excitingly, the figure of merit (FOM) values of PM6:BTP-m-4Cl, PM6:BTP-o-4Cl, and PM6:BTP-m-4Cl:BTP-o-4Cl based devices are 0.190, 0.178, and 0.202 respectively. The FOM values of these systems are all among the top ones of the current high-efficiency OSC systems, revealing high cost-effectiveness of the two NFAs. This work provides a general but accessible strategy to minimize the efficiency-cost gap and promises the economic prospects of OSCs.

Keywords: cost-effectiveness; isomeric engineering; organic solar cell; small-molecule acceptor; synthetic simplification.

Abstract

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