Boosting the Efficiency and Mechanical Stability of Organic Solar Cells Through a Polymer Acceptor by Reducing the Elastic Modulus

Abstract Organic solar cells (OSCs) are regarded as one of the most promising flexible power sources due to their lightweight and flexible properties, with the improvement of photovoltaic and mechanical performance. To improve the current density and power conversion efficiency (PCE), mPh4F‐TS (TS) and PYSe2F‐T (PA) are introduced into the binary host, PM6/mPh4F‐TT (PM6/TT) as third components. It is demonstrated that the corresponding ternary devices, in both rigid and flexible devices, achieved superior efficiencies (19.6%/17.7% for PM6/TT+TS, and 19.2%/17.4% for PM6/TT+PA) outperform the binary counterparts (18.3%/16.4%). However, distinct differences in mechanical performance are observed between the polymer acceptor (PA) and small‐molecular acceptor (TS). The PM6/TT+PA significantly improved the mechanical stability of flexible devices with a lower elastic modulus of 3.6 GPa, while the PM6/TT+TS resulted in the opposite effect with a higher elastic modulus of 5.5 GPa. Through in‐depth investigation, a clear correlation between the elastic modulus, crack density, and mechanical stability of the active layer blends is successfully established, revealing the key role of reducing the elastic modulus in enhancing the mechanical stability of flexible OSCs. This study provides important guidance for the development of flexible photovoltaic devices with both high efficiency and mechanical robustness.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Energy Materials
Published
2025-02-13
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.202404499
Citations
11
Primary Topic
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
8.03

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article

Boosting the Efficiency and Mechanical Stability of Organic Solar Cells Through a Polymer Acceptor by Reducing the Elastic Modulus

Wai‐Yeung Wong, Yúang Fu, Shoufeng Zhang, Shuang Xiao et al.
11 citations
Advanced Energy Materials
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
8.03
article

Boosting the Efficiency and Mechanical Stability of Organic Solar Cells Through a Polymer Acceptor by Reducing the Elastic Modulus

Wai‐Yeung Wong, Yúang Fu, Shoufeng Zhang, Shuang Xiao, Ziyi Ge, Xin Wu, Baoze Liu, Yu Chai, Yuchen Fu, Xihan Chen, Danpeng Gao, He Yan, Xinhui Lu, Shaokuan Gong, Chaoyue Zhao, Wei Song, Zonglong Zhu, Chung Hang Kwok, Yan Wang, Dong Zhang, Chunlei Zhang, Han Yu, Wei Liu, Xianglang Sun, Dan Zhao
article en
11 citations

Abstract

Abstract Organic solar cells (OSCs) are regarded as one of the most promising flexible power sources due to their lightweight and flexible properties, with the improvement of photovoltaic and mechanical performance. To improve the current density and power conversion efficiency (PCE), mPh4F‐TS (TS) and PYSe2F‐T (PA) are introduced into the binary host, PM6/mPh4F‐TT (PM6/TT) as third components. It is demonstrated that the corresponding ternary devices, in both rigid and flexible devices, achieved superior efficiencies (19.6%/17.7% for PM6/TT+TS, and 19.2%/17.4% for PM6/TT+PA) outperform the binary counterparts (18.3%/16.4%). However, distinct differences in mechanical performance are observed between the polymer acceptor (PA) and small‐molecular acceptor (TS). The PM6/TT+PA significantly improved the mechanical stability of flexible devices with a lower elastic modulus of 3.6 GPa, while the PM6/TT+TS resulted in the opposite effect with a higher elastic modulus of 5.5 GPa. Through in‐depth investigation, a clear correlation between the elastic modulus, crack density, and mechanical stability of the active layer blends is successfully established, revealing the key role of reducing the elastic modulus in enhancing the mechanical stability of flexible OSCs. This study provides important guidance for the development of flexible photovoltaic devices with both high efficiency and mechanical robustness.

Advanced Energy MaterialsVol. 16(3)
Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK), University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (CN), City University of Hong Kong (HK), Chinese University of Hong Kong (HK), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HK), Southern University of Science and Technology (CN), HKUST Shenzhen Research Institute (CN), City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen Research Institute (CN), Shenzhen Technology University (CN), Ningbo Institute of Industrial Technology (CN), University of Hong Kong (HK)
National Natural Science Foundation of China, Innovation and Technology Commission - Hong Kong, Innovation and Technology Fund, Science, Technology and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen Municipality, National Key Research and Development Program of China, Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong Province
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 3%
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
8.03
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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