Volume 43, Issue 22 2200190
Research Article

Anion-Doped Thickness-Insensitive Electron Transport Layer for Efficient Organic Solar Cells

Zixian Liu

Zixian Liu

Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

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Haoran Tang

Haoran Tang

Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

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Hexiang Feng

Hexiang Feng

Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

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Ching-Hong Tan

Ching-Hong Tan

Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

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Youcai Liang

Youcai Liang

Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

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Zhicheng Hu

Zhicheng Hu

Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

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Kai Zhang

Corresponding Author

Kai Zhang

Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

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Fei Huang

Corresponding Author

Fei Huang

Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

E-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

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Yong Cao

Yong Cao

Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

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First published: 05 May 2022
Citations: 4

Abstract

In organic solar cells, interfacial materials play essential roles in charge extraction, transportation, and collection. Currently, highly efficient and thickness-insensitive interfacial materials are urgently needed in printable large area module devices. Herein, water/alcohol-soluble conjugated polyelectrolyte PFNBT-Br, with medium bandgap based on benzothiadiazole, are doped by two alkali metal sodium salts, NaH2PO2, Na2C2O4 with different counter anions, to pursue high efficiency and thickness-insensitive electron-transport layers. Results show that the doping of electron-transport material can effectively promote the performance of the devices. Moreover, electron-transport layers doped by these salts with different counter anions show different behaviors in performances. Among which, the salt with oxalate anion C2O42− (also named Ox2−) shows much better device performance than the salt with hypophosphite anion (H2PO2), especially under the thick film condition (e.g., 50 nm). The greatly enhanced performances of interfacial material doped by Ox2− are due to reduced series resistance between the active layer material and the electrode, reduced dark-current, improved charge transport, and extraction efficiency, and decreased charge recombination for the devices at thick-film condition. These results demonstrated that n-doping could be a great potential strategy for making thickness-insensitive interfacial layers, besides, the performances can be further improved by carefully selecting salts.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available in the supplementary material of this article.

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