High-Performance Organic Photovoltaics Incorporating an Active Layer with a Few Nanometer-Thick Third-Component Layer...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Organic Electronics
• Photovoltaics

Background:

• Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) are a promising renewable energy technology.
• Bulk heterojunction (BHJ) architectures are commonly used in OPVs.
• Improving OPV efficiency and stability remains a key research challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate a universal approach for constructing a new bilayer device architecture in OPVs.
• To investigate the impact of a few-nanometer-thick third-component layer on BHJ binary blend layers.
• To enhance the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of state-of-the-art OPV systems.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of OPV devices with a novel layered third-component architecture.
• Utilizing two different state-of-the-art OPV systems (PM6/Y6 and PM7/Y1-4F based).
• Systematic characterization of device performance, including PCE, charge separation, and charge collection.

Main Results:

• The layered third-component structure significantly increased PCE in both OPV systems.
• PM6/Y6 based devices achieved 16.8% PCE with the layered structure, outperforming ternary (16.1%) and binary (15.5%) blends.
• PM7/Y1-4F based devices achieved 15.2% PCE with the layered structure, surpassing ternary (14.2%) and binary (14.0%) blends.

Conclusions:

• The simple layered third-component structure is a universal and effective strategy for high-performance OPVs.
• Improvements in charge separation and charge collection abilities contribute to the enhanced PCE.
• This approach holds significant promise for the future development of efficient organic solar cells.