Disentangling the impact of side chains and fluorine substituents of conjugated donor polymers on the performance of photovoltaic blends

Citations Over TimeTop 1% of 2012 papers

Abstract

Side chains and fluorine (F) substituents on conjugated polymers have shown significant impact on the photovoltaic properties of polymer-based bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells, but their respective impact is largely studied independently. In order to disentangle the effect of side chains and F substituents, we comprehensively investigate a series of conjugated polymers with an identical backbone (PNDT–DTBT) but different combinations of side chains and F substituents. Surprisingly, these seemingly marginal changes to the polymer backbone strongly influence the morphology and structure in BHJ thin films (e.g., domain size/purity and the relative orientation of polymer crystallites), as manifested by resonant soft X-ray scattering (R-SoXS) and grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GI-WAXS), thereby exerting significant impact on the photovoltaic properties of these conjugated polymer-based BHJ cells. Devices based on the polymer with long bulky side chains and F substituents (C8,4-C6,2F) simultaneously exhibit large open circuit voltage (Voc), high short circuit current (Jsc) and good fill factor (FF), with an efficiency as high as 5.6% for this series of PNDT–DTBT polymers.

Related Papers

• → Significant Enhancement of Polymer Solar Cell Performance via Side-Chain Engineering and Simple Solvent Treatment(2013)118 cited
• → Importance of 2D Conjugated Side Chains of Benzodithiophene-Based Polymers in Controlling Polymer Packing, Interfacial Ordering, and Composition Variations of All-Polymer Solar Cells(2017)65 cited
• → Effect of side‐chain end groups on the optical, electrochemical, and photovoltaic properties of side‐chain conjugated polythiophenes(2006)71 cited
• → Stimuli-responsive side chains for new function from conjugated materials(2016)9 cited
• → Effect of Side Chain Substituent Volume on Thermoelectric Properties of IDT-Based Conjugated Polymers(2021)12 cited