A Polymer Morphology Modifier to Achieve High-Performance Opaque and Semi-Transparent Organic Solar Cells

Semi-transparent organic solar cells (ST-OSCs) expand the application of solar energy harvesting technologies in construction, agriculture and other fields. But the inherent power conversion efficiency (PCE)-average visible transmittance (AVT) reciprocity in ST-OSC architectures creates fundamental constraints on simultaneous optimization of photon harvesting and spectral selectivity. In this work, ternary engineering via poly(9-vinylcarbazole) (PVK) addition induced favorable morphology in standard OSCs, enabling a record-high PCE of 16.94% that significantly outperformed conventional binary configurations (15.29<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">%</sup>). Charge dynamics studies suggest that bringing in PVK makes the exciton dissociation and bimolecular transport more efficient. It's worth highlighting that the incorporation of PVK leads to an improvement in the device's thermal stability. Specifically, following 300 minutes of heating, the device manages to keep 84.62% of its starting PCE. Furthermore, PVK was introduced into ST-OSCs and thus a simultaneous improvement in PCE and AVT was achieved, resulting in a champion light utilization efficiency (LUE) of 3.16%. Current study offers an uncomplicated yet effective approach to the manufacture of superior opaque and semi-transparent OSCs.