Ternary Organic Blend Approaches for High Photovoltaic Performance in Versatile Applications

Abstract

Ternary blend approaches are demonstrated as a universal means to improve overall performance of organic photovoltaics (OPVs) in both indoor and outdoor conditions. A comparative study on two donors:one acceptor (2D:1A) and one donor:two acceptors (1D:2A) ternary blends shows that both approaches are universally effective for indoor and outdoor operation; the 1D:2A devices incorporating a nonfullerene acceptor (NFA) benefit from less charge recombination and higher power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) for various irradiation conditions, while the performance of the 2D:1A blends depends on the emission spectrum of the incident light source. The synergistic merits of NFAs and ternary structure in the 1D:2A ternary OPVs secure better performance and generality regardless of the incident lighting. A combination of experimental and theoretical analyses unveils that NFAs optimize packing and arrangement of molecules to build efficient cascade ternary junctions in the 1D:2A blends, which can be important design guidelines for the third component in ternary OPVs. The optimized 1D:2A ternary OPV exhibits a new record PCE of 25.6% under a 200 lux light‐emitting diode (LED) and 26.4% under a 1000 lux LED, and superior durability under industrial relevant thermal stress, suggesting new opportunities in diverse practical applications challenging the currently dominant PV technologies.

Recent Progress on Indoor Organic Photovoltaics: From Molecular Design to Production Scale

“…Up to date, the most efficient indoor organic photovoltaic (IOPV) cells have power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) over 26% under FC or LED. [9][10][11][12] It allows a power output over 30 μW cm -2 under 500 lux of indoor illumination, which is enough to power sensors and communication devices with a small photovoltaic area. In comparison, crystalline silicon (c-Si) can achieve PCEs of 20% under LED illumination.…”

High-Performance Ternary Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Synergizing Fullerene and Non-fullerene Acceptors

“…It is worth noting that the incorporation of NFA into FAbased binary OPVs can also increase the device efficiency via improved morphology. [128][129][130][131] Moreover, the addition of an NFA may form a hydrogen bond with a FA, modify the connection between the donor and the acceptor by virtue of its tunable molecular structure, and also change the dielectric constant and reduce the Coulomb capture radius to mend charge dynamics, to further improve the device performance.…”

Photostability Study of Inverted Polymer Solar Cells Under AM 1.5G and LED Illumination via Impedance Spectroscopy

“…Due to their highly tunable light-absorption photoactive materials properties and well-matched spectral response between the absorption spectra of PSCs device with the emission spectra of common indoor light sources, such as fluorescence and light-emitting diode (LED) lamps, PSCs have shown as much higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) under dim-light illumination [8]- [10]. A recent study by Nam et al demonstrated that PSCs cells illuminated under 1000 lux LED light could possess max PCE of 26.4%, almost three times higher than those under one sun illumination (9.34%) [11].…”