Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Yongfeng Ni, Xuan Liu, Yang Liu, Zhendong Feng, Dandan Tu, Xin Guo, Can Li
Summary: A new concept of nonalloy model is proposed for ternary organic solar cells, which can achieve high efficiency and stability by introducing a third component with moderate miscibility and distributing it in the interspace between donor and acceptor domains.
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Kang-Ning Zhang, Zhi-Nan Jiang, Tong Wang, Jia-Wei Qiao, Lin Feng, Chao-Chao Qin, Hang Yin, Shu-Kong So, Xiao-Tao Hao
Summary: In this study, the enhancement of exciton migration behaviors in PM6:IT4F:PC71BM and PM6:BTP-4Cl:PC71BM ternary devices was achieved by simultaneously improving efficiency and thermal stability. The coexistence of dual Forster-type energy transfer and the addition of PC71BM contributed to the directed exciton diffusion and stabilized the energy donors, leading to more favorable multi-length scale morphologies.
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Jiaoyu Xu, Kexin Yu, Wenting Liang, Cuifen Zhang, Xiaoli Zhou, Rongna Lyu, Shenbo Zhu, Yongjie Cui, Xueliang Shi, Fengkun Chen, Zaifei Ma, Yangen Huang, Huawei Hu
Summary: This study synthesized and investigated two nonfused acceptors with different molecular shapes and found that the asymmetric acceptor with a C-shape backbone exhibited better performance due to enhanced intermolecular interactions and improved charge transfer. Therefore, precise control of molecular shape through rational molecular design represents an effective strategy for adjusting the photovoltaic performance of nonfused acceptor-based solar cells.
ACS MATERIALS LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Lingling Zhan, Shuixing Li, Xinxin Xia, Yaokai Li, Xinhui Lu, Lijian Zuo, Minmin Shi, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: This study proposes and demonstrates a method to optimize the morphology of the active layer in organic photovoltaic devices by combining the layer-by-layer (LbL) procedure and the ternary strategy. By adding an asymmetric electron acceptor to the binary donor:acceptor host, a vertical phase distribution is formed, leading to improved efficiency in OPV devices.
ADVANCED MATERIALS
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Yanna Sun, Huan-Huan Gao, Simin Wu, Lingxian Meng, Xiangjian Wan, Mengyang Li, Zaifei Ma, Ziqi Guo, Shitong Li, Hongtao Zhang, Chenxi Li, Yongsheng Chen
Summary: The study demonstrated the fabrication of ternary organic photovoltaic devices with significantly improved photovoltaic performance, achieving a high power conversion efficiency of 15.23%. The introduction of the near-infrared SMA 3TT-OCIC led to complementary absorption spectrum, narrow bandgap, and compatible crystallization property, contributing to the enhanced efficiency of the ternary devices.
SCIENCE CHINA-CHEMISTRY
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Lifu Zhang, Heng Zhao, Ming Hu, Xinkang Wang, Lei Hu, Houdong Mao, Zhongyi Yuan, Wei Ma, Yiwang Chen
Summary: The study demonstrates the fabrication of high-efficiency and stable ternary bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaic devices using a seleno twisted benzodiperylenediimides acceptor-doping strategy. The devices achieved outstanding power conversion efficiency and maintained nearly 90% of the original efficiency under continuous heating. This ternary strategy was also shown to be universally applicable in various systems.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Mukhamed L. Keshtov, Alexei R. Khokhlov, Dimitriy Y. Shikin, Vladimir Alekseev, Giriraj Chayal, Hemraj Dahiya, Manish Kumar Singh, Fang Chung Chen, Ganesh D. Sharma
Summary: A new medium bandgap non-fullerene small-molecule acceptor (IDT-TC) was designed and compared with IDT-IC acceptor in terms of optical and electrochemical properties. IDT-TC exhibited higher crystallinity and electron mobility compared to IDT-IC. In polymer solar cells, using IDT-TC as the acceptor and P as the donor, achieved a higher power conversion efficiency.
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Jie Lv, Qianguang Yang, Wanyuan Deng, Haiyan Chen, Manish Kumar, FuQing Zhao, Shirong Lu, Hanlin Hu, Zhipeng Kan
Summary: The donor-acceptor miscibility is crucial in controlling the active layer morphologies of ternary organic solar cells. This study demonstrates that the surface energy of blend films can be manipulated by altering the weight ratios of isomeric acceptors, leading to improved miscibility and device performance. By achieving low miscibility with PM6 through controlling acceptor weight ratios, the power conversion efficiency of PM6:M-Cl-based solar cells is enhanced from 17.1% to 18.1%. These improvements are attributed to the surface energy-driven active layer morphology and reduced energetic disorder and charge recombination.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
David A. Palacios-Gomez, Ali M. Huerta Flores, Roderick C. MacKenzie, Christopher Pearson, Faisal Alanazi, Budhika G. Mendis, Christopher Groves
Summary: Organic photovoltaic devices can enhance performance by incorporating a further active material into the absorber layer, forming ternary OPVs. Experimental results on ternary OPV blends incorporating different donor polymers and fullerene acceptors show improvements in internal quantum efficiency and open-circuit voltage, attributed to reductions in charge recombination and alloying of fullerene components. The benefits of using a ternary OPV approach vary depending on the materials system and ternary blend morphology.
ACS APPLIED ENERGY MATERIALS
(2021)
Article
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Yeongkwon Kang, Jung Won Yoon, Seok Woo Lee, Hyungju Ahn, Siwon Yun, Jongchul Lim, Jihoon Lee, Dong Wook Chang, Hyosung Choi, Bong-Gi Kim
Summary: To investigate the effect of miscibility between conjugated polymers (CPs) and Y6 on the morphology of bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) structures, three different CPs with similar chemical structures but varying miscibility with Y6 were studied. The interface morphology and interlocked dimensions were compared quantitatively using a square-wave model after selectively removing Y6 from the CP/Y6 blend films. It was found that as CP-Y6 miscibility increases, a higher intermixed interface is formed, while a decrease in miscibility leads to a decrease in the dimensions formed by phase separation and an increase in width.
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
(2023)
Review
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Xiaopeng Xu, Ying Li, Qiang Peng
Summary: This review provides an overview of the factors affecting the morphology of ternary blend organic solar cells (TB-OSCs) and summarizes the recent progress in morphology studies, including molecular crystallinity, molecular packing orientation, domain size and purity, etc. It also offers prospects for the future development of TB-OSCs.
ADVANCED MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Ziyu Yang, Zhiyong Liu, Lan Chen
Summary: In order to achieve efficient organic photovoltaics, a ternary strategy was adopted by adding efficient long-wavelength light-absorption donor material PSBTBT as the third component, and using D18-Cl:BTP-eC9 binary film as the host photoactive layer. This improved the absorption spectrum and energy transfer within both donor materials. The addition of a small amount of PSBTBT slightly changed the morphology of the photoactive layer, but resulted in a higher power conversion efficiency of 17.35%.
ACS APPLIED POLYMER MATERIALS
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Xiaoling Ma, Anping Zeng, Jinhua Gao, Zhenghao Hu, Chunyu Xu, Jae Hoon Son, Sang Young Jeong, Caixia Zhang, Mengyang Li, Kai Wang, He Yan, Zaifei Ma, Yongsheng Wang, Han Young Woo, Fujun Zhang
Summary: A series of ternary organic photovoltaics have been successfully fabricated by incorporating Y6-1O, which leads to an increase in open-circuit voltage and power conversion efficiency of the devices. By finely adjusting the content of Y6-1O, the optimal device with 30% Y6-1O achieves a conversion efficiency of 17.91%, with significantly improved short-circuit current density and fill factor.
NATIONAL SCIENCE REVIEW
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Mario C. Vebber, Nicole A. Rice, Jaclyn L. Brusso, Benoit H. Lessard
Summary: Axially substituted silicon phthalocyanines [(R3SiO)(2)-SiPc] have shown potential as alternatives to fullerenes in organic photovoltaics (OPVs), with advances in molecular design and device fabrication leading to improved efficiencies. Factors such as the thermodynamic properties of SiPcs and blend morphology play crucial roles in determining device performance. Smaller critical radius values and higher Flory-Huggins miscibility parameter values have been found to correlate to higher power conversion efficiencies, with the properties being dependent on axial substituent size.
ACS APPLIED ENERGY MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Hui Kang, Bing Zheng, Yanxun Li, Shilin Li, Huiqiong Zhou, Lijun Huo, Yuan Zhang
Summary: This study presents a quaternary blend-based strategy for non-fullerene organic solar cells, which leads to concurrent improvements in the device performance and photovoltaic efficiency.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Youwen Pan, Xiangjun Zheng, Jing Guo, Zeng Chen, Shuixing Li, Chengliang He, Shounuan Ye, Xinxin Xia, Shanlu Wang, Xinhui Lu, Haiming Zhu, Jie Min, Lijian Zuo, Minmin Shi, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: Chemical modifications were made to the famous Y-series nonfullerene acceptor BTP-4Cl-BO, resulting in the synthesis of two novel NFAs, BTP-T-2Cl and BTP-T-3Cl, with extended pi-conjugation through the fusing of IC group with a chlorinated thiophene ring. The OSC using BTP-T-2Cl exhibited a modest PCE of 14.89% with an extraordinary low energy loss of 0.49 eV, while the OSC using BTP-T-3Cl showed a higher PCE of 17.61% but with a slightly bigger energy loss of 0.51 eV. Adopting two NFAs of BTP-T-3Cl and BTP-4Cl-BO, a ternary OSC achieved an impressive PCE of 18.21%, demonstrating the effectiveness of expanding end groups of NFAs with electron-donating rings in reducing energy losses for OSCs.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Shuaishuai Chen, Chengliang He, Yaokai Li, Tianyi Chen, Xinxin Xia, Weifei Fu, Minmin Shi, Xinhui Lu, Lijian Zuo, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: The study focuses on the impact of a solid additive on the morphology and performance of PM6:Y6 organic solar cells (OSCs), finding that the addition of the additive can enhance photocurrent and fill factor, leading to an improvement in power conversion efficiency.
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY C
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Xiangjun Zheng, Lijian Zuo, Feng Zhao, Yaokai Li, Tianyi Chen, Shiqi Shan, Kangrong Yan, Youwen Pan, Bowei Xu, Chang-Zhi Li, Minmin Shi, Jianhui Hou, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: This study develops an advanced device structure for flexible organic photovoltaics (OPVs) without indium-tin-oxide (ITO), using ultrathin Ag as the transparent electrode. The designed device achieves high efficiency, low cost, superior flexibility, and upscaling capacity, making it a potential candidate for future commercialization of OPVs.
ADVANCED MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Qing Shen, Chengliang He, Shuixing Li, Lijian Zuo, Minmin Shi, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: Non-fused-ring electron acceptors (NFREAs) are a promising strategy for high-efficiency and low-cost organic solar cells (OSCs). In this study, a tetra-thiophene-cored NFREA with outward branched alkyl chains, BO-4T, was designed and synthesized. By mapping four polymer donors with BO-4T, it was found that the energetic offset, absorption coverage, and phase separation were crucial for maximizing the voltage, photocurrent, crystallinity, and charge-transport properties of OSCs. Among the polymer donors tested, PM6 showed the best performance with BO-4T, achieving a high efficiency of 14.33%.
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Tianyi Chen, Shuixing Li, Yaokai Li, Zeng Chen, Haotian Wu, Yi Lin, Yuan Gao, Mengting Wang, Guanyu Ding, Jie Min, Zaifei Ma, Haiming Zhu, Lijian Zuo, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: A mixed diluent strategy, involving high bandgap NFA (BTP-S17) and low bandgap NFA (BTP-S16), is proposed to improve the device efficiency of organic photovoltaics (OPVs). The combination of BTP-S17 and BTP-S16 enables a better compromise between charge generation and recombination, leading to a high device performance of 19.76%.
ADVANCED MATERIALS
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Chengliang He, Qing Shen, Baohua Wu, Yuan Gao, Shuixing Li, Jie Min, Wei Ma, Lijian Zuo, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: This work introduces a symmetry-asymmetry dual-acceptor (SADA) strategy for constructing ternary devices, which increases both the power conversion efficiency (PCE) and the operational lifetime of organic solar cells (OSCs).
ADVANCED ENERGY MATERIALS
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Qing Shen, Chengliang He, Baohua Wu, Yi Lin, Shuaishuai Chen, Jian Gao, Shuixing Li, Zaifei Ma, Wei Ma, Minmin Shi, Yongfang Li, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: In this study, four NFREAs with different molecular structures, energetic levels, spectral coverages, and crystallinity were used to pair with the polymer donor J52. By regulating the terminal and side chains of NFREAs, enhanced intramolecular charge transfer, reduced energetic offset, and strengthened crystallinity were achieved, resulting in a J52:O-PC-EH-based OSC with the best efficiency of 14.4%.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
(2023)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Shounuan Ye, Shuixing Li, Yuang Fu, Xiangjun Zheng, Shanlu Wang, Youwen Pan, De-Li Ma, Xinhui Lu, Chang-Zhi Li, Minmin Shi, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: A study on the structure-performance relationship of nonfused ring electron acceptors (NFREAs) reveals that regulating rigid conjugation and flexible side chains can improve the efficiency of NFREAs. By extending rigid conjugation and increasing steric hindrance, nanofiber features and suitable domain sizes are achieved, leading to higher efficiency. PhNC-4Cl with cyclopentadithiophene building block and branched alkyl side chains achieves the highest efficiency among the three NFREAs studied.
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Xiangjun Zheng, Lijian Zuo, Kangrong Yan, Shiqi Shan, Tianyi Chen, Guanyu Ding, Bowei Xu, Xi Yang, Jianhui Hou, Minmin Shi, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: Maximizing efficiency and utilizing the advantages of organic photovoltaics (OPVs) is crucial for their commercialization. In this study, we developed ultra-flexible OPVs with tunable colors, record efficiency, and power densities by carefully designing device configurations and fabrication processes. Transparent Ag electrode morphology and optical interference effect were optimized to improve photovoltaic performances and achieve a wide color gamut. The resulting devices exhibited a benchmark efficiency of 17.32% and maintained this efficiency even after peel-off processing and 5,000 compression-release deformation cycles. Additionally, the ultra-thin OPVs demonstrated an excellent power-to-weight ratio of 39.72 W g(-1), surpassing other PV technologies and indicating their adaptability for extreme application scenarios.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Shuixing Li, Chengliang He, Tianyi Chen, Jiale Zheng, Rui Sun, Jin Fang, Yiyao Chen, Youwen Pan, Kangrong Yan, Chang-Zhi Li, Minmin Shi, Lijian Zuo, Chang-Qi Ma, Jie Min, Yujing Liu, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: Intuitive visualization of sensitive donor-acceptor heterojunction interfaces at the nanoscale remains a challenge in organic photovoltaics (OPVs), but is crucial for carrier management. In this study, nanoscale visualization of asymmetric non-fullerene acceptor (NFA) interfaces with ideal absorption edge was achieved, revealing interesting molecular microstructural features and their correlation with charge transport and non-radiative loss. The research also discovered the negative correlation between interfacial bending energy on the ionization potential side and non-radiative loss in small driving force systems, providing another factor for energy loss manipulation. Furthermore, double-channel recombination suppression led to a record efficiency of 19.3% for asymmetric acceptor-based quaternary OPVs. This work advances interface research, enabling the discovery of intrinsic interfacial features and their correlation with carrier management at sub-nanometer resolution.
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Yuying Cao, Fei Wu, Chang Xu, Haotian Wu, Shuixing Li, Xinru Wang, Tianyi Chen, Boyu Peng, Hanying Li, Hongzheng Chen, Lijian Zuo
Summary: In this study, the potential of organic semiconductors for improving the grain boundaries of perovskite films in solar cells was investigated. It was found that the use of non-fullerene acceptors filled into the grain boundaries can effectively enhance the charge transport, leading to improved device performance.
MATERIALS CHEMISTRY FRONTIERS
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Shanlu Wang, Tianyi Chen, Shuixing Li, Lei Ye, Yuang Fu, Xinhui Lu, Haiming Zhu, Lijian Zuo, Minmin Shi, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: In this study, a novel molecular design strategy of polymer donors with a D-A(1)-A(2) structure was proposed to improve the performance of thiophene-based organic photovoltaics. The aggregation states of the polymer donors could be controlled by molecular weights, leading to deep-lying energy levels. When paired with a monochlorinated non-fullerene acceptor, the increase in molecular weights of the polymer donors enhanced aggregation and reduced miscibility, manipulating the domain sizes and crystallinity in blend films. The highest efficiency of 15.0% was achieved by a medium molecular weight PQC-TM donor, demonstrating the feasibility of D-A(1)-A(2) as a molecular structure for efficient thiophene ring-based polymer donors.
JOURNAL OF MATERIALS CHEMISTRY A
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Qing Shen, Chengliang He, Shuixing Li, Lijian Zuo, Minmin Shi, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: This article comprehensively summarizes the work on non-fused ring electron acceptors (NFREAs) in terms of molecular design and efficiency optimization, material cost, and stability. By addressing the issues of conformational unicity and effective molecular packing, NFREAs can achieve higher efficiencies. In addition, the simplified synthesis routes of NFREAs greatly reduce the complexity and cost of production. Strategies for improving intrinsic material stability, photostability, and thermal stability are also discussed. NFREAs have the potential to drive the development of organic solar cells (OSCs) towards high performance, stability, and low cost.
ACCOUNTS OF MATERIALS RESEARCH
(2022)
