Design of novel thiazolothiazole-containing conjugated polymers for organic solar cells and modules

Abstract

One of the major challenges in the field of organic photovoltaics is associated with high-throughput manufacturing of efficient and stable organic solar cells. Practical realization of technologies for production of large-area organic solar cells requires the development of novel materials with a defined combination of properties ensuring sufficient reliability and scalability of the process in addition to good efficiency and operation stability of the devices. In this work, we designed two novel polymers comprising thiazolothiazole units and investigated their performance as absorber materials for organic solar cells and modules. Optimized small-area solar cells based on P1/[70]PCBM ([6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester) blends exhibited promising power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.5%, while larger area modules fabricated using slot die coating showed encouraging PCE of 4.2%. Additionally, the fabricated devices showed promising outdoor stability maintaining 60–70% of the initial efficiency after 20 sun days being exposed to natural sunlight at the Negev desert. The obtained results feature the designed polymer P1 as a promising absorber material for a large-scale production of organic solar cells under ambient conditions.