Performance limitations in thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione-based polymer:ITIC solar cells

Fan Yang; Deping Qian; Ahmed Hesham Balawi; Yang Wu; Wei Ma; Frédéric Laquai; Zheng Tang; Fengling Zhang; Weiwei Li

doi:10.1039/c7cp04780k

Performance limitations in thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione-based polymer:ITIC solar cells

Fan Yang, Deping Qian, Ahmed Hesham Balawi, Yang Wu, Wei Ma, Frédéric Laquai, Zheng Tang, Fengling Zhang, Weiwei Li^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

We report a systematic study of the efficiency limitations of non-fullerene organic solar cells that exhibit a small energy loss (E_loss) between the polymer donor and the non-fullerene acceptor. To clarify the impact of E_loss on the performance of the solar cells, three thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione-based conjugated polymers (PTPD3T, PTPD2T, and PTPDBDT) are employed as the electron donor, which all have complementary absorption spectra compared with the ITIC acceptor. The corresponding photovoltaic devices show that low E_loss (0.54 eV) in PTPDBDT:ITIC leads to a high open-circuit voltage (V_oc) of 1.05 V, but also to a small quantum efficiency, and in turn photocurrent. The high V_oc or small energy loss in the PTPDBDT-based solar cells is a consequence of less non-radiative recombination, whereas the low quantum efficiency is attributed to the unfavorable micro-phase separation, as confirmed by the steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence experiments, grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, and resonant soft X-ray scattering (R-SoXS) measurements. We conclude that to achieve high performance non-fullerene solar cells, it is essential to realize a large V_oc with small E_loss while simultaneously maintaining a high quantum efficiency by manipulating the molecular interaction in the bulk-heterojunction.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	23990-23998
Number of pages	9
Journal	Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
Volume	19
Issue number	35
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1039/c7cp04780k
State	Published - 2017

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are thankful for the support from the Ministry of science and technology (No. 2016YFA0200700). We thank Mr Qiang Wang and Mr Ralf Bovee at Eindhoven University of Technology for GPC analysis, Dr Cheng Wang and Dr Chenhui Zhu from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for GIWAXS and R-SoXS measurement, Prof. Yi Zhou and Prof. Yongfang Li at Soochow University for steady state PL measurement, and Dr Xianjie Liu at Linköping University for UPS measurement. This work was supported by the Recruitment Program of Global Youth Experts of China. The work was further supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21574138, 91233205, and 91633301) and the Strategic Priority Research Program (XDB12030200) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. D. Q. and F. Z. acknowledge financial support from the Swedish Research Council (VR621-2013-5561) and the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linköping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU No 200900971). X-ray data were acquired at beamlines 7.3.3 and 11.0.1.2 at the Advanced Light Source, which is supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Z. T. acknowledges financial support from the Alexander-von-Humboldt foundation. The research reported in this publication was supported by the funding from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 the Owner Societies.

ASJC Scopus subject areas

General Physics and Astronomy
Physical and Theoretical Chemistry

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1039/c7cp04780k

Cite this

@article{4d6aac3a20434d79bf708e8b4ef82277,

title = "Performance limitations in thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione-based polymer:ITIC solar cells",

abstract = "We report a systematic study of the efficiency limitations of non-fullerene organic solar cells that exhibit a small energy loss (Eloss) between the polymer donor and the non-fullerene acceptor. To clarify the impact of Eloss on the performance of the solar cells, three thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione-based conjugated polymers (PTPD3T, PTPD2T, and PTPDBDT) are employed as the electron donor, which all have complementary absorption spectra compared with the ITIC acceptor. The corresponding photovoltaic devices show that low Eloss (0.54 eV) in PTPDBDT:ITIC leads to a high open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.05 V, but also to a small quantum efficiency, and in turn photocurrent. The high Voc or small energy loss in the PTPDBDT-based solar cells is a consequence of less non-radiative recombination, whereas the low quantum efficiency is attributed to the unfavorable micro-phase separation, as confirmed by the steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence experiments, grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, and resonant soft X-ray scattering (R-SoXS) measurements. We conclude that to achieve high performance non-fullerene solar cells, it is essential to realize a large Voc with small Eloss while simultaneously maintaining a high quantum efficiency by manipulating the molecular interaction in the bulk-heterojunction.",

author = "Fan Yang and Deping Qian and Balawi, {Ahmed Hesham} and Yang Wu and Wei Ma and Fr{\'e}d{\'e}ric Laquai and Zheng Tang and Fengling Zhang and Weiwei Li",

note = "Funding Information: We are thankful for the support from the Ministry of science and technology (No. 2016YFA0200700). We thank Mr Qiang Wang and Mr Ralf Bovee at Eindhoven University of Technology for GPC analysis, Dr Cheng Wang and Dr Chenhui Zhu from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for GIWAXS and R-SoXS measurement, Prof. Yi Zhou and Prof. Yongfang Li at Soochow University for steady state PL measurement, and Dr Xianjie Liu at Link{\"o}ping University for UPS measurement. This work was supported by the Recruitment Program of Global Youth Experts of China. The work was further supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21574138, 91233205, and 91633301) and the Strategic Priority Research Program (XDB12030200) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. D. Q. and F. Z. acknowledge financial support from the Swedish Research Council (VR621-2013-5561) and the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Link{\"o}ping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU No 200900971). X-ray data were acquired at beamlines 7.3.3 and 11.0.1.2 at the Advanced Light Source, which is supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Z. T. acknowledges financial support from the Alexander-von-Humboldt foundation. The research reported in this publication was supported by the funding from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2017 the Owner Societies.",

year = "2017",

doi = "10.1039/c7cp04780k",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "19",

pages = "23990--23998",

journal = "Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics",

issn = "1463-9076",

publisher = "Royal Society of Chemistry",

number = "35",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Performance limitations in thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione-based polymer:ITIC solar cells

AU - Yang, Fan

AU - Qian, Deping

AU - Balawi, Ahmed Hesham

AU - Wu, Yang

AU - Ma, Wei

AU - Laquai, Frédéric

AU - Tang, Zheng

AU - Zhang, Fengling

AU - Li, Weiwei

N1 - Funding Information: We are thankful for the support from the Ministry of science and technology (No. 2016YFA0200700). We thank Mr Qiang Wang and Mr Ralf Bovee at Eindhoven University of Technology for GPC analysis, Dr Cheng Wang and Dr Chenhui Zhu from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for GIWAXS and R-SoXS measurement, Prof. Yi Zhou and Prof. Yongfang Li at Soochow University for steady state PL measurement, and Dr Xianjie Liu at Linköping University for UPS measurement. This work was supported by the Recruitment Program of Global Youth Experts of China. The work was further supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21574138, 91233205, and 91633301) and the Strategic Priority Research Program (XDB12030200) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. D. Q. and F. Z. acknowledge financial support from the Swedish Research Council (VR621-2013-5561) and the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Functional Materials at Linköping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU No 200900971). X-ray data were acquired at beamlines 7.3.3 and 11.0.1.2 at the Advanced Light Source, which is supported by the Director, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. Z. T. acknowledges financial support from the Alexander-von-Humboldt foundation. The research reported in this publication was supported by the funding from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). Publisher Copyright: © 2017 the Owner Societies.

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - We report a systematic study of the efficiency limitations of non-fullerene organic solar cells that exhibit a small energy loss (Eloss) between the polymer donor and the non-fullerene acceptor. To clarify the impact of Eloss on the performance of the solar cells, three thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione-based conjugated polymers (PTPD3T, PTPD2T, and PTPDBDT) are employed as the electron donor, which all have complementary absorption spectra compared with the ITIC acceptor. The corresponding photovoltaic devices show that low Eloss (0.54 eV) in PTPDBDT:ITIC leads to a high open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.05 V, but also to a small quantum efficiency, and in turn photocurrent. The high Voc or small energy loss in the PTPDBDT-based solar cells is a consequence of less non-radiative recombination, whereas the low quantum efficiency is attributed to the unfavorable micro-phase separation, as confirmed by the steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence experiments, grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, and resonant soft X-ray scattering (R-SoXS) measurements. We conclude that to achieve high performance non-fullerene solar cells, it is essential to realize a large Voc with small Eloss while simultaneously maintaining a high quantum efficiency by manipulating the molecular interaction in the bulk-heterojunction.

AB - We report a systematic study of the efficiency limitations of non-fullerene organic solar cells that exhibit a small energy loss (Eloss) between the polymer donor and the non-fullerene acceptor. To clarify the impact of Eloss on the performance of the solar cells, three thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione-based conjugated polymers (PTPD3T, PTPD2T, and PTPDBDT) are employed as the electron donor, which all have complementary absorption spectra compared with the ITIC acceptor. The corresponding photovoltaic devices show that low Eloss (0.54 eV) in PTPDBDT:ITIC leads to a high open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 1.05 V, but also to a small quantum efficiency, and in turn photocurrent. The high Voc or small energy loss in the PTPDBDT-based solar cells is a consequence of less non-radiative recombination, whereas the low quantum efficiency is attributed to the unfavorable micro-phase separation, as confirmed by the steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence experiments, grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering, and resonant soft X-ray scattering (R-SoXS) measurements. We conclude that to achieve high performance non-fullerene solar cells, it is essential to realize a large Voc with small Eloss while simultaneously maintaining a high quantum efficiency by manipulating the molecular interaction in the bulk-heterojunction.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85029455127&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1039/c7cp04780k

DO - 10.1039/c7cp04780k

M3 - Article

C2 - 28831480

AN - SCOPUS:85029455127

SN - 1463-9076

VL - 19

SP - 23990

EP - 23998

JO - Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

JF - Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

IS - 35

ER -

Performance limitations in thieno[3,4-c]pyrrole-4,6-dione-based polymer:ITIC solar cells

Abstract

Bibliographical note

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this