Materials and structures for the electron transport layer of efficient and stable perovskite solar cells

The electron transport layer plays a vital function in extracting and transporting photogenerated electrons, modifying the interface, aligning the interfacial energy level and minimizing the charge recombination in perovskite solar cells. This review summarizes the recent research progress on electron transport materials of metal oxides, organic molecules and multilayers. The doped metal oxides as electron transport materials in regular perovskite solar cells show improved device performance relative to their non-doped counterpart due to enhanced electron mobility and energy level alignment. The non-fullerene organic electron transport materials with better electron mobility and tunable energy level alignment need to be further designed and developed despite their advantages of mechanical flexibility and wide range tunability. The multilayer electron transport materials are suggested to be an important direction of research for efficient and stable perovskite solar cells because of their favorable synergistic interaction.     

New perylene diimide electron acceptors for organic electronics: Synthesis,optoelectronic properties and performance in perovskite solar cells

Two new non-fullerene acceptors based on perylene diimide with acetylenic bridges were designed and synthesized employing Stille and Sonogashira coupling reactions as the key steps. Their optical and electronic properties were explored by UV–VIS spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry, and energies of frontier molecular orbitals were estimated. Their preliminary studies in perovskite solar cells as electron transport materials showed the best power conversion efficiency for photocells of 14.18% value.     

Recent development of perylene diimide-based small molecular non-fullerene acceptors in organic solar cells

This review summarizes the recent progress of perylene diimide (PDI) derivatives used as the acceptor materials in non-fullerene organic solar cells. The resulting structure-property correlations and design strategies of this type of acceptors are discussed and commented, which will help to constructing high-performance PDI-based acceptor materials in the future. The problems at present and the effort direction are also pointed out in this review.     

Perylene Diimide-Based Conjugated Polymers for All-Polymer Solar Cells

In recent decades, non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) are undergoing rapid development and emerging as a hot area in the field of organic solar cells. Among the high-performance non-fullerene acceptors, aromatic diimide-based electron acceptors remain to be highly promising systems. This review discusses the important progress of perylene diimide (PDI)-based polymers as non-fullerene acceptors in all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) since 2014. The relationship between structure and property, matching aspects between donors and acceptors, and device fabrications are unveiled from a synthetic chemist perspective.     

萘酰亚胺-卟啉星型电子受体分子的构筑及其在非富勒烯太阳能电池中的应用

非富勒烯太阳能电池目前已经成为有机太阳能电池的研究热点,大量的共轭电子受体分子被开发,并成功应用到高性能光伏器件中。共轭分子作为非富勒烯电子受体,需要综合考虑吸收、能级、电子传输以及结晶性等,其中宽吸收光谱可以提高对太阳光谱的利用,是分子设计中重要因素之一。本工作中,我们设计一种新型电子受体分子,以卟啉为核、萘酰亚胺为端基以及炔为桥连基团。这种新型分子具有近红外的吸收光谱以及合适的能级。将一种具有吸收互补的共轭聚合物为电子给体,星型分子为电子受体应用到电池的活性层中,我们获得了1.8%的能量转换效率,电池的光谱响应为300–900 nm。实验结果证明了这种以卟啉为核的分子设计在实现近红外吸收的电子受体方面具有重要应用前景。     

Effects of processing additives in non-fullerene organic bulk heterojunction solar cells with efficiency >11%

The solar cell surface morphologies with different additives observed with slightly changed in roughness. It is easily to get the best PCE of 11.1% with using 0.5% DIO additives.     

A near-infrared porphyrin-based electron acceptor for non-fullerene organic solar cells

A star-shaped electron acceptor with porphyrin as core and rhodanine-benzothiadiazole as end groups linked with ethynyl units was developed for non-fullerene solar cells, in which a PCE of 1.9% with broad photo response was achieved when combining with a diketopyrrolopyrrole-polymer as electron donor.     

Utilizing 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene(EDOT)-bridged non-fullerene acceptors for efficient organic solar cells

A rational design of efficient low-band-gap non-fullerene acceptors(NFAs)for high-performance organic solar cells(OSCs)remains challenging;the main constraint being the decrease in the energy level of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbitals(LUMOs)as the bandgap of A-D-A-type NFAs decrease.Therefore,the short current density(J_sc)and open-circuit voltage(V_oc)result in a trade-off relationship,making it difficult to obtain efficient OSCs.Herein,three NFAs(IFL-ED-4 F,IDT-ED-4 F,and IDTT-ED-2 F)were synthesized to address the above-mentioned issue by introducing 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene(EDOT)as aπ-bridge.These NFAs exhibit relatively low bandgaps(1.67,1.42,and 1.49 eV,respectively)and upshifted LUMO levels(-3.88,-3.84,and-3.81 eV,respectively)compared with most reported low-band-gap NFAs.Consequently,the photovoltaic devices based on IDT-ED-4 F blended with a PBDB-T donor polymer showed the best power conversion efficiency(PCE)of 10.4%with a high J_sc of 22.1 mA cm^-2 and Voc of 0.884 V among the examined NFAs.In contrast,IDTT-ED-4 F,which was designed with an asymmetric structure of the D-p-A type,showed the lowest efficiency of 1.5%owing to the poor morphology and charge transport properties of the binary blend.However,when this was introduced as the third component of the PM6:BTP-BO-4 Cl,complementary absorption and cascade energy-level alignment between the two substances could be achieved.Surprisingly,the IDTT-ED-4 F-based ternary blend device not only improved the Jscand Voc,but also achieved a PCE of 15.2%,which is approximately 5.3%higher than that of the reference device with a minimized energy loss of 0.488 eV.In addition,the universality of IDTT-ED-2 F as a third component was effectively demonstrated in other photoactive systems,specifically,PM6:BTPe C9 and PTB7-Th:IEICO-4 F.This work facilitates a better understanding of the structure–property relationship for utilizing efficient EDOT-bridged NFAs in high-performance OSC applications.     

钙钛矿型太阳电池研究进展

自从2009年钙钛矿材料被应用到太阳电池领域,到现在仅6年的时间里,钙钛矿型太阳电池的光伏转换效率从约3%提高到20.1%,受到全球瞩目。 本文对近年来钙钛矿型太阳电池的发展进行了综述,介绍了钙钛矿吸光材料的性能及其制备,总结了钙钛矿型太阳电池器件结构及其内在机理,探讨了该类型电池待突破的方向和可能的解决途径,阐述了钙钛矿型太阳电池的进展历程,展望了未来发展方向。     

Side chain engineering investigation of non-fullerene acceptors for photovoltaic device with efficiency over 15%

Science China Chemistry - Side chain engineering plays a substantial role for high-performance organic solar cells (OSCs). Herein, a series of non-fullerene acceptor (NFA) molecules with A-D-A...     

界面钝化策略:提高钙钛矿太阳能电池的稳定性

近年来,新兴起的有机无机杂化钙钛矿太阳能电池突飞猛进,在短短十年里其光电转化效率从3.8%迅速发展到目前25.2%的认证效率,被视为最具有应用潜力的新型高效率太阳能电池之一。虽然钙钛矿太阳能电池具有很高的光电转换效率已与多晶硅薄膜电池相媲美,但是电池的长期稳定性仍是阻碍其商业化的一大挑战。钙钛矿表面和晶界存在大量的缺陷,界面钝化来提高钙钛矿太阳能电池的稳定性是非常重要且有效的策略。二维钙钛矿材料是有机胺层与无机层交替的层状钙钛矿,具有体积较大的有机铵阳离子,与传统的三维钙钛矿材料相比对于环境的稳定性较好,并且结构灵活可调,在三维钙钛矿表面修饰二维钙钛矿层钝化缺陷,在提高钙钛矿太阳能电池效率的同时又保证了稳定性,另外,合适的钝化剂分子也能够非常有效地钝化缺陷。本文总结了钙钛矿太阳能电池的不稳定因素,归纳了钙钛矿太阳能电池界面钝化方面的研究进展,指出了二维钙钛矿材料发展的巨大潜力以及寻找合适钝化剂分子的原则,期望能够为获得高性能的钙钛矿太阳能电池进而实现商业化提供有益的指导。     

Understanding energetic disorder in electron-deficient-core-based non-fullerene solar cells

Recent advances in material design for organic solar cells(OSCs) are primarily focused on developing near-infrared nonfullerene acceptors, typically A-DA′D-A type acceptors(where A abbreviates an electron-withdrawing moiety and D, an electron-donor moiety), to achieve high external quantum efficiency while maintaining low voltage loss. However, the charge transport is still constrained by unfavorable molecular conformations, resulting in high energetic disorder and limiting the device performance. Here, a facile design strategy is reported by introducing the "wing"(alkyl chains) at the terminal of the DA′D central core of the A-DA′D-A type acceptor to achieve a favorable and ordered molecular orientation and therefore facilitate charge carrier transport. Benefitting from the reduced disorder, the electron mobilities could be significantly enhanced for the"wing"-containing molecules. By carefully changing the length of alkyl chains, the mobility of acceptor has been tuned to match with that of donor, leading to a minimized charge imbalance factor and a high fill factor(FF). We further provide useful design strategies for highly efficient OSCs with high FF.     

钙钛矿太阳能电池中吸收层的研究进展

钙钛矿太阳能电池因具有成本低、制备容易和光电性能优异等突出特点受到了广泛关注.钙钛矿太阳能电池能量转化效率已从2009年的3.8%提升到2019年的25.2%.我们在文中重点总结了钙钛矿电池吸收层的制备工艺,掺杂和晶体组成、结构调控方面取得的重要进展,以及这些突破对电池效率提高的贡献,同时也提出了钙钛矿太阳能电池发展仍需要解决的问题.     

Advances in the structure and materials of perovskite solar cells

The possible exhaustion of fossil fuels in the near future and soaring global energy demand have driven the search for new types of sustainable and renewable alternatives. Perovskite (CH₃NH₃PbX₃, X = I, Br, Cl) solar cells are a type of solar cell based on a perovskite absorber, most commonly a tin halide-based or hybrid organic–inorganic lead material, as the visible-light sensitizer layer, which produces electricity from sunlight. Recently, perovskite solar cells have received substantial worldwide attention. Compared with traditional solar cells, the perovskite solar cells can obtain high efficiency with a simple architecture and via a cost-effective process. In the latest 5 years, the efficiency of perovskite solar cells to convert power has skyrocketed from 3.8 % to more than 19.3 %. It is the fastest advancing solar technology to date. The highest efficiency demonstrated by perovskite solar cells is higher than that of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). A lager number of research groups have demonstrated that perovskite solar cells may ultimately boost efficiency as high as 25 %. The high efficiency and cheap production costs make it evident that perovskite solar cells have great potential to be commercialized soon. In this review, the history, materials, processing and architecture of solar cells are discussed to obtain a better understanding of high-performance perovskite solar cells.     

钙钛矿太阳电池吸光层材料研究进展

近年来,有机-无机卤化铅钙钛矿太阳电池的研究取得了突破性进展,公证记录电池效率22.1%,与CdTe薄膜电池（认证记录电池效率22.1%）和CuInGaSn（CIGS）（认证记录电池效率22.3%）薄膜电池技术相媲美,已经接近于市场上主导地位的晶体硅太阳电池（约25%）。有机卤化铅钙钛矿太阳电池器件的长期效率输出稳定性和含毒性Pb严重制约其实际应用。本文将讨论有机卤化铅钙钛矿太阳电池不稳定性因素和相应的解决方案,并对钙钛矿材料中Pb元素的取代工作和无机非铅钙钛矿材料及其太阳电池的研究进行了阐述与展望。     

Recent Advances in Flexible Perovskite Solar Cells: Fabrication and Applications

Flexible perovskite solar cells have attracted widespread research effort because of their potential in portable electronics. The efficiency has exceeded 18 % owing to the high‐quality perovskite film achieved by various low‐temperature fabrication methods and matching of the interface and electrode materials. This Review focuses on recent progress in flexible perovskite solar cells concerning low‐temperature fabrication methods to improve the properties of perovskite films, such as full coverage, uniform morphology, and good crystallinity; demonstrated interface layers used in flexible perovskite solar cells, considering key figures‐of‐merit such as high transmittance, high carrier mobility, suitable band gap, and easy fabrication via low‐temperature methods; flexible transparent electrode materials developed to enhance the mechanical stability of the devices; mechanical and long‐term environmental stability; an outlook of flexible perovskite solar cells in portable electronic devices; and perspectives of commercialization for flexible perovskite solar cells based on cost.     

聚3-己基噻吩：非富勒烯太阳能电池中的量子效率损失和电压损失

聚3-己基噻吩(P3HT)以其合成工艺简单、成本低廉的优势,成为有机光伏领域中最具吸引力的电子给体材料之一。然而,目前P3HT: 非富勒烯太阳能电池的光伏性能仍然较差。在本工作中,我们证明了与P3HT: 富勒烯太阳能电池相比,较快的电荷转移态的非辐射衰减速率(K_nr)是导致P3HT: 非富勒烯太阳能电池中较低的量子效率和较高的电压损失的原因。然后,我们研究了基于非富勒烯受体ZY-4Cl的太阳能电池的工作机理。研究结果表明与P3HT: 非富勒烯体系相比,P3HT: ZY-4Cl中K_nr的降低改善了器件的量子效率,同时降低了电压损失。K_nr降低的原因可以部分归因于电荷转移态能量的增加。此外,给体分子和受体分子之间的距离(DA间距)的增大也是K_nr减少的重要原因。因此,我们得出结论：为了提高P3HT太阳能电池的性能,需进一步降低器件的K_nr,这可通过增加活性层中的DA间距来实现。     

聚3-己基噻吩：非富勒烯太阳能电池中的量子效率损失和电压损失

From the industrial perspective, poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) is one of the most attractive donor materials in organic photovoltaics. The large bandgap in P3HT makes it particularly promising for efficient indoor light harvesting, a unique advantage of organic photovoltaic (PV) devices, and this has started to gain considerable attention in the field of PV technology. In addition, the up-scalability and long material stability associated with the simple chemical structure make P3HT one of the most promising materials for the mass production of organic solar cells. However, the solar cells based on P3HT has a low power conversion efficiency (PCE), which is less than 11%, mainly due to significant voltage losses. In this study, we identified the origin of the high quantum efficiency and voltage losses in the P3HT: non-fullerene based solar cells, and we proposed a strategy to reduce the losses. More specifically, we observed that: 1) the non-radiative decay rate of the charge transfer (CT) states formed at the donor–acceptor interfaces was much higher for the P3HT: non-fullerene solar cells than that for the P3HT: fullerene solar cells, which was the main reason for the more severely limited photovoltage; 2) the origin of the high non-radiative decay rate in the P3HT: non-fullerene solar cell could be ascribed to the short packing distance between the P3HT and non-fullerene acceptor molecules at the donor–acceptor interfaces (DA distance), which is a rarely studied interfacial structural property, highly important in determining the decay rate of CT states; 3) the lower voltage loss in the state-of-the-art P3HT solar cell based on the 2, 2'-((12, 13-bis(2-butyldecyl)-3, 9-diundecyl-12, 13-dihydro-[1, 2, 5]-thiadiazolo[3, 4-e]thieno[2', 3': 4', 5']thieno[2', 3': 4, 5]p-yrolo[3, 2-g]thieno[2', 3': 4, 5]thieno[3, 2-b]indole-2, 10-diyl)bis(methanelylidene))bis(5, 6-dichloro-1H-indene-1, 3(2H)-dion-e) (ZY-4Cl) acceptor could be associated with the better alignment of the energy levels of the active materials and the longer DA distance, compared to those based on the commonly used acceptors. However, the DA distance was still very short, limiting the device voltage. Thus, improving the performance of the P3HT based solar cells requires a further increase in the DA distance. Our findings are expected to pave the way for breaking the performance bottleneck of the P3HT based solar cells.     

卤化钙钛矿太阳能电池材料理论研究进展

卤化钙钛矿由于具有低成本、高效率等特点,最近作为非常有前景的太阳能电池吸收层材料被广泛研究。卤化钙钛矿型太阳能电池效率在短短的几年间由3.8%(2009年)迅速增加到22.1%(2016年)。卤化钙钛矿型太阳能电池的出现彻底改变了太阳能电池领域,不仅因为它们快速增长的效率,而且因为它们在材料生长和结构方面的可控性。卤化钙钛矿型太阳能电池的优越性能说明卤化钙钛矿材料具有独特的物理性质。在本综述中,我们总结了卤化钙钛矿材料最近几年在结构、电学、光学方面的理论研究成果,这些都与它们在太阳能电池方面的应用密切相关。我们也将探讨一些卤化钙钛矿型太阳能电池目前遇到的挑战以及可能的理论解决途径。     

Non-fullerene acceptor fibrils enable efficient ternary organic solar cells with 16.6% efficiency

Optimizing the components and morphology within the photoactive layer of organic solar cells(OSCs) can significantly enhance their power conversion efficiency(PCE). A new A-D-A type non-fullerene acceptor IDMIC-4F is designed and synthesized in this work, and is employed as the third component to prepare high performance ternary solar cells. IDMIC-4F can form fibrils after solution casting, and the presence of this fibrillar structure in the PBDB-T-2F:BTP-4F host confines the growth of donors and acceptors into fine domains, as well as acting as transport channels to enhance electron mobility. Single junction ternary devices incorporating 10 wt% IDMIC-4F exhibit enhanced light absorption and balanced carrier mobility, and achieve a maximum PCE of 16.6% compared to 15.7% for the binary device, which is a remarkable efficiency for OSCs reported in literature. This non-fullerene acceptor fibril network strategy is a promising method to improve the photovoltaic performance of ternary OSCs.