Abstract
Ternary polymer solar cells (PSCs) have been widely demonstrated as an effective method to improve device performance. Meanwhile, the simple fabrication technology can be well kept with a single bulk heterojunction active layer, which is beneficial to the potential industrialization of PSCs. The photovoltaic parameters, such as short-circuit current density, open-circuit voltage, and fill factor, of ternary PSCs can be simultaneously improved by appropriately incorporating the third component, resulting in the increased power conversion efficiency (PCE) compared with the corresponding binary PSCs. To date, the PCE of ternary PSCs has exceeded 17% with the development of effective donors and non-fullerene acceptors. The fundamental designing rules of ternary PSCs are summarized to give some available guidelines for material selection. Next, the recent progress of efficient ternary PSCs based on various types is investigated. Then, some methods are introduced to investigate the working mechanisms of ternary PSCs. At length, the perspective toward the future development of ternary PSCs is discussed.
Highlights
Photovoltaic cells as a renewable energy technology have long been the research focus around the world
The morphology control is a big challenge for highly efficient ternary polymer solar cells (PSCs), which can be affected by many factors, such as material intrinsic properties, device structure, used solvent and additive, film treatment, and fabrication environment
Ternary PSCs can improve device performance at the same time maintain simple fabrication technology, which is a great superiority in future industry production
Summary
Photovoltaic cells as a renewable energy technology have long been the research focus around the world. The third component plays multiple roles in the performance improvement of PSCs. The photon harvesting of ternary PSCs can be enhanced by employing three materials with complementary absorption spectra. It is still a big challenge to fabricate ternary PSCs with increased three photovoltaic parameters, which need to strictly select the third component from the absorption spectrum, energy levels, and compatibility. Many small molecule and polymer donors work well with fullerene, which promotes the development of fullerene-based ternary PSCs or all small molecule solar cells. We introduce some design rules to fabricate highly efficient ternary PSCs. The selection guidelines of the third component are carefully discussed from absorption spectra, energy levels, material compatibility, and photovoltaic parameters of binary PSCs. we investigate the recent progress of ternary PSCs involving the non-fullerene acceptors. The stability improvement is still a difficult task in the future research of ternary PSCs
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