Evaporation Kinetics Engineering Suppressed Bimolecular Recombination in All‐Polymer Solar Cells

All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) combine the synthetic tunability of non-fullerene acceptor systems with intrinsic mechanical and thermal robustness of polymer active layers, yet their performance remains limited by pronounced bimolecular recombination, leading to insufficient fill factors (FFs) compared to polymer:small-molecule counterparts. Here, we introduce Phenanthrene (Ph) as a donor-selective morphology regulator in the benchmark all-PSC system. Capacitance spectroscopy reveals that bimolecular recombination dominates the recombination landscape and that Ph nearly halves the Langevin reduction factor, resulting in substantial improvement in FFs. Multiscale characterization, together with in situ optical spectroscopy and all-atom molecular-dynamics simulations, collectively show that, in contrast to 1-chloronaphthalene (1-CN, which remains in the film) and 2-methylnaphthalene (2-MN, which evaporates rapidly), Ph exhibits moderate evaporation kinetics during annealing. This enables enhanced donor crystallinity together with sufficient time and space for acceptor crystallization into fractal networks with increased fractal dimension, thereby reducing donor-acceptor interfacial area. As a result, Ph-assisted binary and ternary all-PSCs achieve power conversion efficiencies of 18.74% and 19.35%, respectively. By explicitly correlating additive molecular structure and evaporation kinetics with multiscale morphology and recombination pathways, this work establishes rational selection rules for volatile solid additives and provides a general strategy to suppress bimolecular recombination in high-performance all‑PSCs.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Science
Published
2026-08-17
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.77114
Primary Topic
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00

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article

Evaporation Kinetics Engineering Suppressed Bimolecular Recombination in All‐Polymer Solar Cells

Pok Fung Chan, Xiankai Chen, Jiaying Wu, Lijian Zuo et al.
Advanced Science
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
article

Evaporation Kinetics Engineering Suppressed Bimolecular Recombination in All‐Polymer Solar Cells

Pok Fung Chan, Xiankai Chen, Jiaying Wu, Lijian Zuo, 杨志祥, He Yan, Xinhui Lu, Gang Li, Luhang Xu, Dinglong Feng, Le Mei, Chun‐Jen Su, Yuang Fu, Patrick Wai‐Keung Fong, U‐Ser Jeng, Heng Liu, Yiming Wang, Chao Li
article en

Abstract

All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) combine the synthetic tunability of non-fullerene acceptor systems with intrinsic mechanical and thermal robustness of polymer active layers, yet their performance remains limited by pronounced bimolecular recombination, leading to insufficient fill factors (FFs) compared to polymer:small-molecule counterparts. Here, we introduce Phenanthrene (Ph) as a donor-selective morphology regulator in the benchmark all-PSC system. Capacitance spectroscopy reveals that bimolecular recombination dominates the recombination landscape and that Ph nearly halves the Langevin reduction factor, resulting in substantial improvement in FFs. Multiscale characterization, together with in situ optical spectroscopy and all-atom molecular-dynamics simulations, collectively show that, in contrast to 1-chloronaphthalene (1-CN, which remains in the film) and 2-methylnaphthalene (2-MN, which evaporates rapidly), Ph exhibits moderate evaporation kinetics during annealing. This enables enhanced donor crystallinity together with sufficient time and space for acceptor crystallization into fractal networks with increased fractal dimension, thereby reducing donor-acceptor interfacial area. As a result, Ph-assisted binary and ternary all-PSCs achieve power conversion efficiencies of 18.74% and 19.35%, respectively. By explicitly correlating additive molecular structure and evaporation kinetics with multiscale morphology and recombination pathways, this work establishes rational selection rules for volatile solid additives and provides a general strategy to suppress bimolecular recombination in high-performance all‑PSCs.

Advanced Science
Zhejiang International Studies University (CN), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK), Chinese University of Hong Kong (HK), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HK), National Tsing Hua University (TW), Guangzhou University (CN), Soochow University (CN), National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (TW), Zhejiang University (CN), University of Hong Kong (HK)
Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 18%
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
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