Eliminating the Detrimental Effect of Secondary Doping on PEDOT : PSS Hole Transporting Material Performance

Secondary doping has a long history of use in conductivity enhancement in poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) : poly(styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT : PSS). However, very little research has addressed its detrimental effect on application performance of PEDOT : PSS in organic solar cells. Herein, it was shown that the uneven drying of secondary dopant-water mixture results in a nonuniform/continuous film structure, causing severe damage to the device efficiencies (dropping about 8 and 23 % for poly[(2,6-(4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)thiophen-2-yl)-benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene))-alt-(5,5-(1',3'-di-2-thienyl-5',7'-bis(2-ethylhexyl)benzo[1',2'-c:4',5'-c']dithiophene-4,8-dione))] (PBDB-T) : 3,9-bis(2-methylene-(3-(1,1-dicyanomethylene)-indanone))-5,5,11,11-tetrakis(4-hexylphenyl)-dithieno[2,3-d:2',3'-d']-s-indaceno[1,2-b:5,6-b']dithiophene (ITIC) and poly[(2,6-(4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)-4-fluorothiophen-2-yl)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithio-phene))-co-(1,3-di(5-thiophene-2-yl)-5,7-bis(2-ethylhexyl)-benzo[1,2-c:4,5-c']dithiophene-4,8-dione))](PM6) : (3,9-bis(1-oxo-2-methylene-3-(1,1-dicyanomethylene)-5,6-difluoroindanone)-5,5,11,11-tetrakis(4-n-hexylphenyl)-dithieno[2,3d:2',3'd']-s-indaceno[1,2b:5,6b']dithiophene (IT-4F) cells, respectively) and thermal stabilities. Moreover, a simple yet robust dialysis treatment was proposed to solve the issue of noncontinuity and retain the secondary doping's advantages of quinoid structure simultaneously, thus demonstrating a significant enhancement in device performance. This study will be of great importance to the future exploration of the next generation of post-treatment strategy.