A comparative study of the photovoltaic performances of terpolymers and ternary systems

Zewdneh Genene,Xiaofeng Xu,Ergang Wang,Wendimagegn Mammo,Junyi Wang,Renqiang Yang

doi:10.1039/c7ra01418j

Abstract

Terpolymer systems were realized as a good strategy to combine two incompatible polymers as compared to ternary systems.

Highlights

Polymer solar cells (PSCs) fabricated from these terpolymers were compared with those fabricated from the ternary blends of two alternating polymers to explore the best strategy for extending the light absorption range
The device fabricated from the ternary blend exhibited a lower power conversion efficiency (PCE) (3.5%) compared to those fabricated from the terpolymers and alternating polymer blends due to the morphological incompatibility of the donor polymers
Our results illustrate the potential of the terpolymer systems as a promising strategy to effectively increase the light absorption and thereby performance of PSCs by combining two morphologically incompatible polymers

Summary

Introduction

Bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) polymer solar cells (PSCs) comprising p-conjugated polymers as donors and fullerene derivatives as acceptors are promising for the realization of low-cost solar energy conversion due to their attractive properties of light weight, easy fabrication, and the ability to be fabricated into exible large-area devices.[1,2,3] In the past few years, remarkable progress has been made in improving the performances of PSCs, with PCEs reaching over 11%.4 Designing conjugated polymers that exhibit broad and strong light absorption, high charge carrier mobility, and suitable energy level matching with fullerene derivatives has been an efficient strategy to obtain high performance PSCs.[5,6]A broader and stronger absorption of the photoactive layer is valuable to harvest more photons from solar light, which is a crucial prerequisite for attaining high-performance PSCs. Polymer solar cells (PSCs) fabricated from these terpolymers were compared with those fabricated from the ternary blends of two alternating polymers to explore the best strategy for extending the light absorption range.

Results

Conclusion