Over 18.2%‐Efficiency Organic Solar Cells with Exceptional Device Stability Enabled by Bay‐Area Benzamide‐Functionalized Perylene Diimide Interlayer

Abstract

A simultaneous further increase in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) and device stability of organic solar cells (OSCs) over the current levels needs to be overcome for their commercial viability. Herein, a bay‐area benzamide‐functionalized perylene diimide‐based electron transport layer, namely H75 is developed, to obtain the aforementioned characteristics. The advantages of H75‐employed OSCs include a notable PCE up to 18.26% and outstanding device stabilities under conditions of varying severity (>95% PCE retention after 1500 h upon long‐term aging and exceptional T80 lifetimes (the time required to reach 80% of initial performance) of over 1000 h in light‐soaking, 500 h in thermal stress at 85 °C, 72 h in 85% high relative humidity, and 100 h in atmospheric‐air conditions without encapsulation in conventional architecture). The excellent performance of H75‐employed OSC can be attributed to its various beneficial features derived from the bay‐area benzamide functionalities (e.g., excellent film‐forming ability, suitable energy level, reduced aggregation, and intrinsic high structural stability). The findings of this work provide further insights into the molecular design of electron transport layers for realizing more efficient and stable OSCs.

Intramolecular Lock Conjugated Polymer Electrolytes as the Cathode Interfacial Layer for Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells

“…Thus, the improvement of J SC and FF can be further explained. , Additionally, the relationship between J SC and Plight is expressed as J SC ∝ P light α , where α means the degree of compounding. When α is close to 1, it indicates that the bimolecular compounding is suppressed, and the carriers can be collected effectively . According to the observation in Figure i, the slopes of PFPy-BT and PFPy-TT-based devices are 0.992 and 0.995, respectively, while the slope of PFPy-TTBT-based devices is 0.998, which is closest to 1.…”

Designing thickness-insensitive cathode interlayers via constructing noncovalently conformational locks for highly efficient non-fullerene organic solar cells

“…A plausible explanation is that the polymer films are more hydrophobic and maintain a robust morphology, while the morphology of PDINO film is susceptible to the influence of external factors. 47,48 Furthermore, we prepared a highly efficient non-fullerene OSC with a thick PF-BDT (thickness: 53 nm) as CIL. The device still maintains a high PCE value of 15.31% (Fig.…”

Reexamining the Role of Solution-Cast Ferroelectric Polymer Interlayer toward Enhanced Efficiency and Stability in Conventional Organic Solar Cells

“…Photovoltaics using organic semiconductors as the photoactive layer promise the production of lightweight, flexible, and semitransparent solar cells that show high application potential in wearable and portable electronics. − The efforts from molecular design, morphology control, and interface engineering have boosted the maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of single-junction organic solar cells (OSCs) by surpassing 19%. − A typical OSC device is stacked by two electrodes, including hole and electron transport layers (HTL, ETL) sandwiching a photoactive layer, − within which the photogenerated excitons are dissociated and the produced free carriers are extracted by the HTL/ETL layer toward anode/cathode. As such, developing a facile approach to optimize both the photoactive and the charge transport layers simultaneously holds great potential to prepare efficient and stable OSCs.…”