Dissecting the structure-stability relationship of Y-series electron acceptors for real-world solar cell applications

Han Xu, Jianhua Han, Si Chen, Ye Liu, Luis Huerta Hernandez, Jules Bertrandie, Maxime Babics, Shahidul Alam, Diego Rosas Villalva, Sri Harish Kumar Paleti, Julien Gorenflot, Christoph Herok, Nicolas Ramos, Joel Troughton, Anirudh Sharma, Todd B. Marder, Bernd Engels, Jaime Martin, Stefaan De Wolf, Frédéric LaquaiDerya Baran*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Scopus citations

Abstract

Despite striking progress toward improving the photovoltaic (PV) performance of organic solar cells (OSCs) with recent Y-series non-fullerene acceptors (Y-NFAs), knowledge about their outdoor performance under real-world conditions and photodegradation mechanisms remains elusive, which is urgently needed to close the lab-to-fab gap of OSCs. Herein, for the first time, we study the structure-outdoor-stability relationship of Y-NFAs. We show that Y-NFAs with long internal side-chains exhibit high energy barriers for photoisomerization, and fluorinated end-groups can enhance the structural confinement to inhibit the photodegradation pathway and thereby improve device stability. Furthermore, the performance loss of Y-NFA-based OSCs under illumination is mainly driven by increased trap-assisted recombination over time. The structure-stability correlation and demonstration of outdoor performance of these state-of-the-art Y-NFA cells provided in this study highlight molecular engineering of device stability control to minimize power output losses in real-world climates.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)2135-2151
Number of pages17
JournalJoule
Volume7
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 20 2023

Keywords

  • non-fullerene acceptors
  • organic solar cells
  • outdoor stability
  • photostability
  • Y6

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Energy

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