Non-halogenated Solvent-Processed Organic Solar Cells with Approaching 20 % Efficiency and Improved Photostability

Jiali Song; Chen Zhang; Chao Li; Jiawei Qiao; Jifa Yu; Jiaxin Gao; Xunchang Wang; Xiaotao Hao; Zheng Tang; Guanghao Lu; Renqiang Yang; He Yan; Yanming Sun

doi:10.1002/anie.202404297

Non-halogenated Solvent-Processed Organic Solar Cells with Approaching 20 % Efficiency and Improved Photostability

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2024 Mar 25:e202404297. doi: 10.1002/anie.202404297. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Jiali Song^{1

2}, Chen Zhang², Chao Li³, Jiawei Qiao⁴, Jifa Yu⁵, Jiaxin Gao⁶, Xunchang Wang⁷, Xiaotao Hao⁴, Zheng Tang⁶, Guanghao Lu⁵, Renqiang Yang⁷, He Yan³, Yanming Sun^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ International Innovation Institute, Beihang University, Hangzhou, 311115, P. R. China.
² School of Chemistry, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, P. R. China.
³ Department of Chemistry and Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, 999077, P. R. China.
⁴ School of Physics State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan, 250100, P. R. China.
⁵ Frontier Institute of Science and Technology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710054, P. R. China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Center for Advanced Low-dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China.
⁷ X. Wang, R. Yang, Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Chemical Materials and Devices (Ministry of Education), School of Optoelectronic Materials & Technology, Jianghan University, Wuhan, 430056, P. R. China.

PMID: 38526996
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202404297

Abstract

The development of high-efficiency organic solar cells (OSCs) processed from non-halogenated solvents is crucially important for their scale-up industry production. However, owing to the difficulty of regulating molecular aggregation, there is a huge efficiency gap between non-halogenated and halogenated solvent processed OSCs. Herein, we fabricate o-xylene processed OSCs with approaching 20 % efficiency by incorporating a trimeric guest acceptor named Tri-V into the PM6:L8-BO-X host blend. The incorporation of Tri-V effectively restricts the excessive aggregation of L8-BO-X, regulates the molecular packing and optimizes the phase-separation morphology, which leads to mitigated trap density states, reduced energy loss and suppressed charge recombination. Consequently, the PM6:L8-BO-X:Tri-V-based device achieves an efficiency of 19.82 %, representing the highest efficiency for non-halogenated solvent-processed OSCs reported to date. Noticeably, with the addition of Tri-V, the ternary device shows an improved photostability than binary PM6:L8-BO-X-based device, and maintains 80 % of the initial efficiency after continuous illumination for 1380 h. This work provides a feasible approach for fabricating high-efficiency, stable, eco-friendly OSCs, and sheds new light on the large-scale industrial production of OSCs.

Keywords: Non-halogenated solvent; efficiency; oligomer; organic solar cells.