Complex Makes It Powerful: From Unidirectional to Bidirectional via Synergistic Volatile Solid Additives Enabling 20.16% Efficient and Stable Organic Solar Cells

ABSTRACT Traditional volatile solid additives (VSAs) often regulate only the donor or acceptor phase, limiting synergistic microstructure optimization. Here, we report two halogenated nitrobenzene‐based additives, 3,5‐dichloronitrobenzene (DCNB) and 3,5‐dibromonitrobenzene (DBNB), that enable bidirectional regulation of both components. Owing to their anisotropic electrostatic potential and large dipole moments, they simultaneously promote ordered crystallization of donor D18 and enhanced packing of acceptor L8‐BO. Characterizations confirm improved molecular ordering and optimized phase separation, forming a favorable interpenetrating network. Consequently, D18:L8‐BO devices with DCNB and DBNB achieve power conversion efficiencies of 20.16% and 19.80%, respectively, versus 17.87% for the control. The 20.16% efficiency ranks among the highest for binary OSCs processed with volatile solid additives. Charge dynamics and transient absorption spectroscopy reveal enhanced exciton dissociation, suppressed recombination, and accelerated interfacial hole transfer. This strategy also shows broad universality across multiple D‐A systems, retaining >90% initial efficiency after 1000 h. This work unveils a bidirectional synergistic regulation mechanism and offers new insights into morphology engineering for stable, high‐efficiency OSCs.

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Publication Details

Journal
Advanced Energy Materials
Published
2026-09-21
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.71615
Primary Topic
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
Type
article
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article

Complex Makes It Powerful: From Unidirectional to Bidirectional via Synergistic Volatile Solid Additives Enabling 20.16% Efficient and Stable Organic Solar Cells

Haoran Zhang, Guangliu Ran, Pengyuan Su, Donghong Yu et al.
Advanced Energy Materials
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
article

Complex Makes It Powerful: From Unidirectional to Bidirectional via Synergistic Volatile Solid Additives Enabling 20.16% Efficient and Stable Organic Solar Cells

Haoran Zhang, Guangliu Ran, Pengyuan Su, Donghong Yu, Yu Wang, Chuanlang Zhan, Hairui Liu, Wenkai Zhang, Jichu Wu, Xinming Zheng, Yingshuang Bi, Haiyang Li, Jing Zhang, Zhaoshuang Liu
article en

Abstract

ABSTRACT Traditional volatile solid additives (VSAs) often regulate only the donor or acceptor phase, limiting synergistic microstructure optimization. Here, we report two halogenated nitrobenzene‐based additives, 3,5‐dichloronitrobenzene (DCNB) and 3,5‐dibromonitrobenzene (DBNB), that enable bidirectional regulation of both components. Owing to their anisotropic electrostatic potential and large dipole moments, they simultaneously promote ordered crystallization of donor D18 and enhanced packing of acceptor L8‐BO. Characterizations confirm improved molecular ordering and optimized phase separation, forming a favorable interpenetrating network. Consequently, D18:L8‐BO devices with DCNB and DBNB achieve power conversion efficiencies of 20.16% and 19.80%, respectively, versus 17.87% for the control. The 20.16% efficiency ranks among the highest for binary OSCs processed with volatile solid additives. Charge dynamics and transient absorption spectroscopy reveal enhanced exciton dissociation, suppressed recombination, and accelerated interfacial hole transfer. This strategy also shows broad universality across multiple D‐A systems, retaining >90% initial efficiency after 1000 h. This work unveils a bidirectional synergistic regulation mechanism and offers new insights into morphology engineering for stable, high‐efficiency OSCs.

Advanced Energy Materials
Inner Mongolia Normal University (CN), Beijing Normal University (CN), Ministry of Education (RW), Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research (CN), Aalborg University (DK)
Affordable and clean energy
Openalex Percentile: Top 20%
Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics
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