ISSN print edition: 0366-6352 ISSN electronic edition: 1336-9075 Registr. No.: MK SR 9/7 Published monthly

Organic solar cells based on anthracene-containing PPE–PPVs and non-fullerene acceptors

Shahidul Alam, Rico Meitzner, Ogechi V. Nwadiaru, Christian Friebe, Jonathan Cann, Johannes Ahner, Christoph Ulbricht, Zhipeng Kan, Stephanie Höppener, Martin D. Hager, Daniel A. M. Egbe, Gregory C. Welch, Frédéric Laquai, Ulrich S. Schubert, and Harald Hoppe

Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany

E-mail: shahidul.alam@uni-jena.de

Abstract: Lately, non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) have received increasing attention for use in polymer-based bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells (OSCs), as improved photovoltaic performance compared to classical polymer–fullerene blends could be demonstrated. In this study, polymer solar cells based on a statistically substituted anthracene-containing poly(p-phenylene ethynylene)-alt-poly(p-phenylene vinylene)s (PPE–PPVs) copolymer (AnE-PVstat) as donor in combination with a number of different electron accepting materials were investigated. Strong photoluminescence quenching of the polymer donor indicates intimate intermixing of both materials. However, the photovoltaic performances were found to be poor compared to blends that use fullerene as acceptor. Time-delayed collection field (TDCF) measurements demonstrate: charge generation is field-independent, but bimolecular recombination processes limit the fill factor and thus the efficiency of devices.

Keywords: Non-fullerene acceptors (NFA) ; Bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) ; Organic solar cell (OSC) 

Full paper is available at www.springerlink.com.

DOI: 10.1007/s11696-018-0466-y

Chemical Papers 72 (7) 1769–1778 (2018)