Molecular design revitalizes the low-cost PTV-polymer for highly efficient organic solar cells
Open Access
- 12 February 2021
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in National Science Review
- Vol. 8 (8), nwab031
- https://doi.org/10.1093/nsr/nwab031
Abstract
Developing photovoltaic materials with simple chemical structures and easy synthesis still remains a major challenge in the industrialization process of organic solar cells (OSCs). Herein, an ester substituted poly(thiophene vinylene) derivative, PTVT-T, was designed and synthesized in very few steps by adopting commercially available raw materials. The ester groups on the thiophene units enable PTVT-T to have a planar and stable conformation. Moreover, PTVT-T presents a wide absorption band and strong aggregation effect in solution, which are the key characteristics needed to realize high performance in non-fullerene-acceptor (NFA)-based OSCs. We then prepared OSCs by blending PTVT-T with three representative fullerene- and NF-based acceptors, PC71BM, IT-4F and BTP-eC9. It was found that PTVT-T can work well with all the acceptors, showing great potential to match new emerging NFAs. Particularly, a remarkable power conversion efficiency of 16.20% is achieved in a PTVT-T:BTP-eC9-based device, which is the highest value among the counterparts based on PTV derivatives. This work demonstrates that PTVT-T shows great potential for the future commercialization of OSCs.Keywords
Funding Information
- Guangdong Major Project of Basic and Applied Basic Research (2019B030302007)
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (22075017, 21835006, 51961135103)
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China (FRF-TP-19-047A2, FRF-BR-19-003B)
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019M660799)
- NIH
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