Volume 6, Issue 7 2200073
Research Article

High-Efficiency P3HT-Based All-Polymer Solar Cells with a Thermodynamically Miscible Polymer Acceptor

Youle Li

Youle Li

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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Yue Zhang

Yue 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

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Baoqi Wu

Baoqi Wu

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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Shuting Pang

Shuting Pang

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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Xiyue Yuan

Xiyue Yuan

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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Chunhui Duan

Corresponding Author

Chunhui Duan

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

Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory of Optoelectronic and Magnetic Functional Materials, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024 P. R. China

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Fei Huang

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

Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory of Optoelectronic and Magnetic Functional Materials, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

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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

Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory of Optoelectronic and Magnetic Functional Materials, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640 P. R. China

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First published: 06 April 2022
Citations: 14

Abstract

Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) is the most classical conjugated polymer for organic photovoltaics due to its low-cost and synthetic scalability. However, P3HT-based organic photovoltaics suffer from inferior device performance with respect to donor–acceptor copolymers. Particularly, the device performance of P3HT-based all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) is rather poor due to the challenges in reaching ideal bulk-heterojunction morphology. Herein, highly efficient P3HT-based all-PSCs by blending P3HT with a thermodynamic miscible polymer acceptor are reported. Among the three state-of-the-art polymer acceptors (N2200, PYT, and DCNBT-IDT), N2200 and PYT are thermodynamically immiscible with P3HT and thus led to excessive phase separation when blended with P3HT, whereas DCNBT-IDT displayed proper thermodynamic miscibility with P3HT and generated the formation of well-mixed fibrillary active layer morphology. As a result, a power conversion efficiency of 7.35% has been achieved by P3HT:DCNBT-IDT blend, which is a new record for P3HT-based all-PSCs and largely higher than any previous results. Broad implication for further efficiency enhancement of P3HT-based all-PSCs is provided in the results and a promising pathway to realize highly efficient yet cost-effective solar energy production is suggested.

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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