Dimer Acceptor Adopting a Flexible Linker for Efficient and Durable Organic Solar Cells
Feng Qi
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Yanxun Li
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Rui Zhang
Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM), Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Francis R. Lin
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Kaikai Liu
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Qunping Fan
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 710049 Xi'an, P. R. China
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Prof. Alex K.-Y. Jen
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Washington, 98195 Seattle, WA, USA
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Search for more papers by this authorFeng Qi
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Yanxun Li
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Rui Zhang
Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM), Linköping University, 58183 Linköping, Sweden
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Francis R. Lin
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Kaikai Liu
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Search for more papers by this authorDr. Qunping Fan
State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 710049 Xi'an, P. R. China
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Prof. Alex K.-Y. Jen
Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Washington, 98195 Seattle, WA, USA
Hong Kong Institute for Clean Energy, City University of Hong Kong, 999077 Kowloon, Hong Kong
Search for more papers by this authorGraphical Abstract
A dimer acceptor with flexible linker was designed and synthesized, which not only acts as the third component to enhance the intermolecular packing, but also stabilizes the morphology by suppressing the molecular diffusion. As a result, the PM6 : Y6 : dT9TBO based organic solar cells exhibited a high power conversion efficiency of 18.41 % with excellent thermal/photo stability and mechanical performance.
Abstract
Organic solar cells (OSCs) have advanced rapidly due to the development of new photovoltaic materials. However, the long-term stability of OSCs still poses a severe challenge for their commercial deployment. To address this issue, a dimer acceptor (dT9TBO) with flexible linker is developed for incorporation into small-molecule acceptors to form molecular alloy with enhanced intermolecular packing and suppressed molecular diffusion to stabilize active layer morphology. Consequently, the PM6 : Y6 : dT9TBO-based device displays an improved power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.41 % with excellent thermal stability and negligible decay after being aged at 65 °C for 1800 h. Moreover, the PM6 : Y6 : dT9TBO-based flexible OSC also exhibits excellent mechanical durability, maintaining 95 % of its initial PCE after being bended repetitively for 1500 cycles. This work provides a simple and effective way to fine-tune the molecular packing with stabilized morphology to overcome the trade-off between OSC efficiency and stability.
Open Research
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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