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Chin. Phys. B, 2019, Vol. 28(8): 088802    DOI: 10.1088/1674-1056/28/8/088802
INTERDISCIPLINARY PHYSICS AND RELATED AREAS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Prev  

Exploring alkylthiol additives in PBDB-T:ITIC blended active layers for solar cell applications

Xiang Li(李想)1, Zhiqun He(何志群)1, Mengjie Sun(孙盟杰)1, Huimin Zhang(张慧敏)1, Zebang Guo(郭泽邦)1, Yajun Xu(许亚军)1, Han Li(李瀚)1, Chunjun Liang(梁春军)1, Xiping Jing(荆西平)2
1 Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Optical Information, Ministry of Education, Institute of Optoelectronic Technology, Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China;
2 College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Abstract  

Bulk heterojunction, non-fullerene PBDB-T:ITIC blend polymer solar cells have been fabricated. The active layers consisting of PBDB-T as a donor and ITIC as an acceptor are optimized using a series of alkylthiol additives (1,3-propanedithiol, 1,4-butanedithiol, and 1,8-octanedithiol). It is found that the donor and acceptor are phase separated with different crystalline domains. The additives effectively re-organize the morphology and extend the molecule ordering in lamellar structure with increased correlation length in ITIC domain, benefiting the generation and dissociation of exciton and reducing charge recombination. A substantial improvement in power conversion efficiency of the devices from 8.13% to 9.44% is observed. This study shows that the application of alkylthiol additives is a simple and effective approach to improve the device performance in solar cells based on polymer/non-fullerene blend system.

Keywords:  bulk heterojunction (BHJ) polymer/non-fullerene solar cells      solvent additive      morphology      crystallization  
Received:  09 April 2019      Revised:  21 May 2019      Accepted manuscript online: 
PACS:  88.40.jr (Organic photovoltaics)  
  78.55.-m (Photoluminescence, properties and materials)  
  61.05.C- (X-ray diffraction and scattering)  
  73.50.Gr (Charge carriers: generation, recombination, lifetime, trapping, mean free paths)  
Fund: 

Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11474017, 61574014, and 61874008).

Corresponding Authors:  Zhiqun He     E-mail:  zhqhe@bjtu.edu.cn

Cite this article: 

Xiang Li(李想), Zhiqun He(何志群), Mengjie Sun(孙盟杰), Huimin Zhang(张慧敏), Zebang Guo(郭泽邦), Yajun Xu(许亚军), Han Li(李瀚), Chunjun Liang(梁春军), Xiping Jing(荆西平) Exploring alkylthiol additives in PBDB-T:ITIC blended active layers for solar cell applications 2019 Chin. Phys. B 28 088802

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