High-efficiency and air-stable P3HT-based polymer solar cells with a new non-fullerene acceptor

Sarah Holliday, Raja Shahid Ashraf, Andrew Wadsworth, Derya Baran, Syeda Amber Yousaf, Christian B. Nielsen, Ching-Hong Tan, Stoichko D. Dimitrov, Zhengrong Shang, Nicola Gasparini, Maha A Alamoudi, Frédéric Laquai, Christoph J. Brabec, Alberto Salleo, James R. Durrant, Iain McCulloch

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1060 Scopus citations

Abstract

Solution-processed organic photovoltaics (OPV) offer the attractive prospect of low-cost, light-weight and environmentally benign solar energy production. The highest efficiency OPV at present use low-bandgap donor polymers, many of which suffer from problems with stability and synthetic scalability. They also rely on fullerene-based acceptors, which themselves have issues with cost, stability and limited spectral absorption. Here we present a new non-fullerene acceptor that has been specifically designed to give improved performance alongside the wide bandgap donor poly(3-hexylthiophene), a polymer with significantly better prospects for commercial OPV due to its relative scalability and stability. Thanks to the well-matched optoelectronic and morphological properties of these materials, efficiencies of 6.4% are achieved which is the highest reported for fullerene-free P3HT devices. In addition, dramatically improved air stability is demonstrated relative to other high-efficiency OPV, showing the excellent potential of this new material combination for future technological applications.
Original languageEnglish (US)
JournalNature Communications
Volume7
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 9 2016

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'High-efficiency and air-stable P3HT-based polymer solar cells with a new non-fullerene acceptor'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this