Origin of effects of additive solvent on film-morphology in solution-processed nonfullerene solar cells

In this paper, we report an efficient nonfullerene solar cell based on small molecules of p-DTS(FBTTh2)2 and bis-PDI-T. Characterization data indicate that the nature of the acceptor aggregate is a key factor that affects the photocurrent. There is a good relationship between the short-circuit current density (J(SC)) and the phase size of the acceptor-rich domains. The phase size of the acceptor-rich domains is tuned by both the additive types and additive content. As the kind of additive goes from 1-chloronaphthalene (CN) to 1,8-octanedithiol (ODT) and 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO), by this order the solubility of the acceptor in the additive is down, the phase size significantly decreases from over 400 nm down to 30 nm. Also, the acceptor's domain size decreases from 80 to 30 nm as the DIO content ([DIO]) is down from 1% to 0.15%. Following this trend, less DIO remains in the wet film as residue after the host chloroform evaporates, and thus less acceptor can be dissolved in the residue DIO. This decreasing of DIO content acts on the film-morphology similarly as the additive changes down to the one having a lower solubility. Accordingly, our results indicate that it is the dissolved amount of the organic component in the residue additive solvent of the wet film that plays a role in turning the phase size. The efficiency from this small molecule system is significantly raised from 0.02% up to 3.7% by selecting the additive type and fine-tuning the additive content.