Recent Advances in Mechanically Robust and Stretchable Bulk Heterojunction Polymer Solar Cells

Abstract

Organic bulk heterojunction solar cells are promising candidates as future photovoltaic technologies for large‐scale and low‐cost energy production. It is, therefore, not surprising that research on the design and preparation of these types of organic photovoltaics has attracted a lot of attention since the last two decades, leading to constantly growing values of energy conversion and efficiency. Combined with the possibility of a large‐scale production via roll‐to‐roll printing techniques, bulk heterojunction solar cells enable the fabrication of conformable, light‐weight and flexible light‐harvesting devices for point‐of‐use applications. This perspective review will highlight the recent advances toward mechanically robust and intrinsically stretchable bulk heterojunction solar cells. Mechanically robust fullerene‐based and all‐polymer devices will be presented, as well as a comprehensive overview of the recent challenges and characterization techniques recently developed to overcome some of the challenges of this research area, which is still in its infancy.

Optimizing Morphology to Trade Off Charge Transport and Mechanical Properties of Stretchable Conjugated Polymer Films

“…Conjugated polymers possessing π-conjugated backbones with alternating single and double (or triple) covalent bonds for charge transport have attracted great attention since the discovery of conductive polyacetylene in the 1970s. − These materials have various advantages over the conventional inorganic semiconductors, such as light weight, tunable optoelectronic properties, mechanical compliance, and low-cost solution printing fabrication. The unique characteristics enable the application of conjugated polymer thin films in large-area stretchable electronics, such as stretchable organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), − flexible or stretchable organic light-emitting diodes, − conformable organic solar cells (OSCs), − stretchable electrodes, , and wearable sensors. , These stretchable electronics are extremely promising for the Internet-of-Things, healthcare, smart textiles, and consumer electronics.…”

Intrinsically Stretchable Organic Solar Cells with Efficiencies of over 11%

“…Intrinsically stretchable OSCs (SOSCs) with a highly simple device structure without buckling can be constructed by seamlessly integrating all the stretchable components into a single system. However, this structure has not been thoroughly investigated. , …”

Photophysical and Optical Properties of Semiconducting Polymer Nanoparticles Prepared from Hyaluronic Acid and Polysorbate 80

“…Compactional analysis of the different polymers was performed by DFT; all geometries were fully optimized by using the M06-2X functional in conjunction with a 6-311G basis set, and the scan calculations were performed using the opt = ModRedundant with Gaussian 09 program package. 6 Cyclic voltammetry measurements were carried out using a CHIode three-electrode electrochemical setup utilizing a glassy carbon working electrode, a silver/silver chloride reference electrode, and a platinum wire counter electrode in an anhydrous acetonitrile solvent. NMR spectra were recorded on Bruker NMR spectrometers (DPX 300 and DPX 300 US operating at 300 MHz ( 1 H) and 75 MHz ( 13 C)).…”

“…Organic semiconducting polymers are a special class of materials that have been attracting a lot of attention for a rich variety of applications in optoelectronics, mostly because of their intrinsic charge transport properties, exceptional optical properties, and synthetic versatility. 1−3 Throughout the years, π-conjugated polymers have been used as active materials in high-performance electronic devices such as organic field-effect transistors, 4,5 organic photovoltaics, 6,7 and organic light-emitting diodes. 8,9 These materials have also been shown to be particularly promising candidates for the development of advanced stretchable and conformable bioelectronics and sensing devices.…”