Side‐Chain Asymmetry in Quinoxaline Copolymer Donors Enables Optimal Morphology and Improved Charge Dynamics for High‐Efficiency Organic Solar Cells

All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) have attracted increasing attention owing to their superior mechanical robustness, morphological stability, and solution-processability. However, intricate intermolecular interactions hinder the precise regulation of donor-acceptor miscibility and phase separation, thereby restricting the formation of ideal donor-acceptor interpenetrating networks and favorable charge dynamics. Herein, an asymmetric side-chain strategy is developed for a quinoxaline-based polymer donor (PBAQ6) to precisely modulate donor and acceptor miscibility. Systematic studies demonstrate that the side-chain structure could effectively modulate the film morphology features and charge dynamics of the active layer. Notably, the PBAQ6 polymer with an asymmetric side-chain configuration achieves reasonable donor-acceptor miscibility with the PYF-T-o polymer acceptor. Consequently, the PBAQ6:PYF-T-o-based binary all-PSCs deliver a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.35%, and a further enhanced PCE of 19.52% is achieved for the ternary all-PSCs with a small amount of PBQ12 as a second polymer donor, which ranks among the best values reported so far. Overall, this work demonstrates that, within the investigated quinoxaline-based polymer-donor platform, asymmetric side-chain engineering can concurrently regulate donor-acceptor miscibility, active-layer morphology, and bulk charge dynamics, thereby providing a useful molecular-design principle for the development of high-performance all-polymer solar cells.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Science
Published
2026-09-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.77555
Primary Topic
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
Type
article
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article

Side‐Chain Asymmetry in Quinoxaline Copolymer Donors Enables Optimal Morphology and Improved Charge Dynamics for High‐Efficiency Organic Solar Cells

Shirong Lu, Beibei Qiu, 成于乐, Jianqi Zhang et al.
Advanced Science
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
article

Side‐Chain Asymmetry in Quinoxaline Copolymer Donors Enables Optimal Morphology and Improved Charge Dynamics for High‐Efficiency Organic Solar Cells

Shirong Lu, Beibei Qiu, 成于乐, Jianqi Zhang, Lei Meng, Gang Li, Yongfang Li, Shucheng Qin, Ke Hu, Wenbin Lai, Jing Guo, Can Zhu, Hong Zhang, Jinyuan Zhang
article en

Abstract

All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) have attracted increasing attention owing to their superior mechanical robustness, morphological stability, and solution-processability. However, intricate intermolecular interactions hinder the precise regulation of donor-acceptor miscibility and phase separation, thereby restricting the formation of ideal donor-acceptor interpenetrating networks and favorable charge dynamics. Herein, an asymmetric side-chain strategy is developed for a quinoxaline-based polymer donor (PBAQ6) to precisely modulate donor and acceptor miscibility. Systematic studies demonstrate that the side-chain structure could effectively modulate the film morphology features and charge dynamics of the active layer. Notably, the PBAQ6 polymer with an asymmetric side-chain configuration achieves reasonable donor-acceptor miscibility with the PYF-T-o polymer acceptor. Consequently, the PBAQ6:PYF-T-o-based binary all-PSCs deliver a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.35%, and a further enhanced PCE of 19.52% is achieved for the ternary all-PSCs with a small amount of PBQ12 as a second polymer donor, which ranks among the best values reported so far. Overall, this work demonstrates that, within the investigated quinoxaline-based polymer-donor platform, asymmetric side-chain engineering can concurrently regulate donor-acceptor miscibility, active-layer morphology, and bulk charge dynamics, thereby providing a useful molecular-design principle for the development of high-performance all-polymer solar cells.

Advanced Science
Zhejiang Normal University (CN), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HK), Hebei University of Technology (CN), Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (CN), National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (CN), Hebei University (CN), Taizhou University (CN)
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 20%
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
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