Hot slot die coating for additive-free fabrication of high performance roll-to-roll processed polymer solar cells

Song, Seyeong; Lee, Jun Young; Koh, Chang Woo; Shin, Hyebeom; Gao, Mei; Woo, Han Young; Vak, Doojin; Kim, Jin Young

doi:10.1039/c8ee02221f

Cited by 90 publications

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“…A key difference between the batch and roll-to-roll processes is the time constraint in the roll-to-roll process. [34,37,39,40,42,[78][79][80][81][82] We found the record PCEs of slot-die coated PSCs have been surprisingly low, as shown in Figure 5d. Therefore, time-consuming processes, such as solvent soaking technique, cannot be used in the roll-to-roll process.…”

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confidence: 78%

“…[35] Hou and coworkers also presented the excellent PCE of 9.5% in doctor blade-coated PSCs based on PTB7-Th and 3,9-bis(2-methylene-(3-(1,1-dicyanomethylene)-indanone))-5,5,11,11-tetrakis(4hexylphenyl)-dithieno[2,3-d:2′,3′-d′]-s-indaceno[1,2-b:5,6-b′] dithiophene) (ITIC) NFA. [39,40] Furthermore, the PCEs of roll-to-roll slot-die PSCs have been only within ≈(5-7)% [39][40][41] and the 7.32% PCE has been known as the top record efficiency of the roll-to-roll processed PSC. [21] Although the abovementioned studies showed promising results, the blade coating method could have limited practicality in manufacturing, especially for roll-to-roll production, due to the method having difficulty in controlling film-thickness and fabricating stripe patterns; and in fact, there has been no report on the roll-to-roll fabrication of blade-coated PSCs.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…We found a higher PCE only in a proceeding report that describes a 9.5% module, without disclosing details of the materials and processing parameters. [39,40,42] More importantly, the performance is still impressive, and the loss in the transition from the batch on glass to continuous roll-to-roll process on flexible substrate was minimal. The inset of Figure 5b shows the flexible PSCs and the roll-to-roll deposition system used for this demonstration.…”

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Slot‐Die and Roll‐to‐Roll Processed Single Junction Organic Photovoltaic Cells with the Highest Efficiency

Lee

Seo

Kwon

et al. 2019

Advanced Energy Materials

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PSC-efficiencies have increased with intensive effort on novel materials synthesis, film-morphology engineering, and interface control, and the state-of-the-art PSCs have eventually produced a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of over 15%. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] For example, Zou et al. reported a newly synthesized nonfullerene acceptor (NFA), Y6, having an electron-deficient-core-based fused ring with a benzothiadiazole unit, and the resulting single-junction PSCs based on PM6:Y6 BHJ showed an excellent efficiency of 15.7% and a certified PCE of 14.9%. [20] In addition, Hou and co-workers recently reported a series of copolymers, and in particular, the copolymer T1 (poly[(2,6-(4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)-4-fluorothiophen-2-yl)-benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′] dithiophene))-alt-(5,5-(1′,3′-di-2-thienyl-5′,7′-bis(2-ethylhexyl)benzo[1′,2′-c:4′,5′-c′] dithiophene-4,8-dione)] (PBDB-TF) = 0.8 and PTO2 = 0.2) produced the bestefficiency of 15.1% and certified PCE of 14.6% in PSCs using 3,9-bis(2-methylene-((3-(1,1-dicyanomethylene)-6,7difluoro)-indanone))-5,5,11,11-tetrakis(4hexylphenyl)-dithieno[2,3-d:2′,3′-d′]-s-indaceno[1,2-b:5,6-b′] dithiophene (IT-4F) acceptor. [21] One of the representative routes to further enhance PSCefficiency is broadening the absorption bandwidth of the active film for better sunlight absorption. [21][22][23] To this end, the ternary The record efficiency of the state-of-the-art polymer solar cells (PSCs) is rapidly increasing, due to the discovery of high-performance photoactive donor and acceptor materials. However, strong questions remain as to whether such high-efficiency PSCs can be produced by scalable processes. This paper reports a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 13.5% achieved with single-junction ternary PSCs based on PTB7-Th, PC 71 BM, and COi8DFIC fabricated by slot-die coating, which shows the highest PCE ever reported in PSCs fabricated by a scalable process. To understand the origin of the high performance of the slot-die coated device, slot-die coated photoactive films and devices are systematically investigated. These results indicate that the good performance of the slot-die PSCs can be due to a favorable moleculestructure and film-morphology change by introducing 1,8-diiodooctane and heat treatment, which can lead to improved charge transport with reduced carrier recombination. The optimized condition is then used for the fabrication of large-area modules and also for roll-to-roll fabrication. The slot-die coated module with 30 cm 2 active-area and roll-to-roll produced flexible PSC has shown 8.6% and 9.6%, respectively. These efficiencies are the highest in each category and demonstrate the strong potential of the slot-die coated ternary system for commercial applications. Photovoltaic DevicesThe ORCID identification number(s) for the author(s) of this article can be found under https://doi.Over the past few decades, solution-processed bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) polymer solar cells (PSCs) have continued to demonstrate their potential as a high-ef...

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Slot‐Die and Roll‐to‐Roll Processed Single Junction Organic Photovoltaic Cells with the Highest Efficiency

Lee

Seo

Kwon

et al. 2019

Advanced Energy Materials

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“…Bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells (OSCs) consisting of electron donor and electron acceptor as light absorbers have attracted broad attention due to their advantages of flexibility, light weight and low cost . Over the last thirty years, great efforts have been made to promote the rapid progress of OSCs, leading to over 17% power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) .…”

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Efficient Organic Solar Cells with a High Open‐Circuit Voltage of 1.34 V

et al. 2019

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Summary of main observation and conclusion One of the most important challenges that hinders the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic solar cells (OSCs) is the modest open‐circuit voltages (VOC) due to large energy losses. The large driving force during for charge generation and the non‐radiative recombination are the main causes of energy losses. To maximize the VOC of OSCs, herein, we modulate the end‐groups and design a non‐fullerene acceptor ITCCM‐O, which shows a bandgap of 2.0 eV. By blending a polymer donor named J52, the device demonstrates a PCE of 5.5% with an outstanding VOC of 1.34 V, which is the highest value for single‐junction OSCs over 5% PCEs. The high VOC is benefited from 1) the negligible driving force for charge transfer, and 2) the suppressed non‐radiative recombination loss, as low as 0.22 V.

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“…[4][5][6] Benefiting from the great efforts devoted to the design of new materials, [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] optimization of the blend morphology, [14][15][16][17][18] understanding the charge generation mechanism, [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] significant progress has been achieved in the last few years. [4][5][6] Benefiting from the great efforts devoted to the design of new materials, [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] optimization of the blend morphology, [14][15][16][17][18] understanding the charge generation mechanism, [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] significant progress has been achieved in the last few years.…”

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Eco‐Compatible Solvent‐Processed Organic Photovoltaic Cells with Over 16% Efficiency

et al. 2019

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inorganic photovoltaic cells based on crystal-silicon, the solution processability of OPV cells makes it suitable for the largescale solution production at room temperature via the roll-to-roll method, which promises low-cost and large area device fabrication onto flexible substrates. [4][5][6] Benefiting from the great efforts devoted to the design of new materials, [7][8][9][10][11][12][13] optimization of the blend morphology, [14][15][16][17][18] understanding the charge generation mechanism, [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] significant progress has been achieved in the last few years. Recently, the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of OPV cells have surpassed ≈15%. [27][28][29] However, the devices with cutting-edge performance are fabricated using highly toxic solvents like chlorinated and/or aromatic solvents, which is not adaptable for large-scale production and becoming a severe problem that hinders the mass production of the OPV cells. Therefore, the material design of OPV materials should take both the efficiency and processability into consideration.At present, the commonly used processing solvents for high-performance OPV materials are chlorobenzene (CB) and chloroform (CF), as they possess excellent dissolving capability of the highly conjugated structures. [30][31][32] Over the last few years, the design and application of nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs) have achieved Recent advances in nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs) have enabled the rapid increase in power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. However, this progress is achieved using highly toxic solvents, which are not suitable for the scalable large-area processing method, becoming one of the biggest factors hindering the mass production and commercial applications of OPVs. Therefore, it is of great importance to get good eco-compatible processability when designing efficient OPV materials. Here, to achieve high efficiency and good processability of the NFAs in eco-compatible solvents, the flexible alkyl chains of the highly efficient NFA BTP-4F-8 (also known as Y6) are modified and BTP-4F-12 is synthesized. Combining with the polymer donor PBDB-TF, BTP-4F-12 shows the best PCE of 16.4%. Importantly, when the polymer donor PBDB-TF is replaced by T1 with better solubility, various eco-compatible solvents can be applied to fabricate OPV cells. Finally, over 14% efficiency is obtained with tetrahydrofuran (THF) as the processing solvent for 1.07 cm 2 OPV cells by the blade-coating method. These results indicate that the simple modification of the side chain can be used to tune the processability of active layer materials and thus make it more applicable for the mass production with environmentally benign solvents. Organic PhotovoltaicsOrganic photovoltaic (OPV) cells consisting of organic layers as photoactive materials are one of the most promising next-generation photovoltaic technologies to harvest clean and renewable solar energy. [1][2][3] When compared with the conventional

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Hot slot die coating for additive-free fabrication of high performance roll-to-roll processed polymer solar cells

Abstract: High performance flexible polymer solar cells are realized by using the 3D printer-based slot die coating method.

Cited by 90 publications

References 55 publications

Slot‐Die and Roll‐to‐Roll Processed Single Junction Organic Photovoltaic Cells with the Highest Efficiency

Slot‐Die and Roll‐to‐Roll Processed Single Junction Organic Photovoltaic Cells with the Highest Efficiency

Efficient Organic Solar Cells with a High Open‐Circuit Voltage of 1.34 V

Eco‐Compatible Solvent‐Processed Organic Photovoltaic Cells with Over 16% Efficiency

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