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Printing Fabrication of Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells and In Situ Morphology Characterization

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Structural Homology Solid Additives Enhancing Crystallization Thermodynamics for Constructing Ordered Fibrillar

Huoqing Yang¹, Xingjian Dai¹, Weilin Zhou¹

¹School of Chemical Engineering and State Key Laboratory of Advanced Polymer Materials, Sichuan University, Chengdu, P. R. China.

Small (Weinheim an Der Bergstrasse, Germany)

|June 18, 2026

Summary

A novel "structural homology" strategy using a tailored additive (A2) enhances organic solar cell (OSC) morphology. This approach improves crystalline structure, boosting power conversion efficiency (PCE) beyond 20%.

Keywords:

layer‐by‐layer processing technology morphology regulation organic solar cells solid additives structural homology

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Published on: May 27, 2020

Area of Science:

Materials Science
Organic Electronics
Photovoltaics

Background:

Morphology control is crucial for advancing organic solar cells (OSCs) beyond the 20% efficiency barrier.
Traditional additives can negatively impact the intrinsic polymer packing essential for high performance.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a new additive strategy for precise morphology regulation in layer-by-layer (LbL) processed OSCs.
To overcome the limitations of conventional additives by employing a "structural homology" approach.

Main Methods:

Designed an advanced additive (A2) through heteroatom engineering, based on the D18 polymer monomer (A1).
Preserved alkylated bridges while replacing fused thiophenes with thiazoles in A2 for lattice compatibility.
Incorporated electron-withdrawing imine nitrogen atoms into A2 to enhance its dipole moment and introduce specific conformational locks.

Main Results:

The additive A2 acted as a homological template, optimizing crystallization thermodynamics for a highly ordered fibrillar network with improved π-π stacking.
LbL-processed D18/L8-BO devices using A2 demonstrated accelerated exciton dissociation and reduced trap-assisted recombination.
Achieved a record power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 20.22%, surpassing control (19.23%) and A1-processed (19.75%) devices.

Conclusions:

The "structural homology" strategy with additive A2 effectively regulates morphology in LbL-processed OSCs.
This method provides a pathway to break the efficiency bottleneck in organic solar cells.
Heteroatom engineering of additives offers a promising route for developing high-performance organic electronic devices.