Advanced Functional Materials
Advanced Functional Materials
4 years ago

Morphology of a Ternary Blend Solar Cell Based on Small Molecule:Conjugated Polymer:Fullerene Fabricated by Blade Coating

Morphology of a Ternary Blend Solar Cell Based on Small Molecule:Conjugated Polymer:Fullerene Fabricated by Blade Coating
Qizhen Chen, Shuqiong Lan, Tailiang Guo, Huipeng Chen, Guocheng Zhang, Xiaomin Wu
Here, conjugated polymer is added as third component to tune the solution viscosity, morphology, and function of small molecule (SM) based bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells, which are fabricated using blade coating. Novel information about the effect of blade coating speed on the nanoscale morphology and function of ternary blend solar cells is provided. The crystal sizes increase with an increase of coating speed for both binary and ternary blends, while the addition of the third component tends to favor smaller SM crystal grains and improves the connectivity of SM crystals. Small angle neutron scattering experiments provide the first clear experimental evidence that the addition of the third component would significantly impact the fullerene phase separation, which is crucial for bimolecular recombination and charge transport. It shows that for both binary and ternary blends, the concentration and sizes of [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) aggregates increase with an increase of coating speed, while addition of third component does not affect the volume fraction of PCBM aggregates but impacts the size of PCBM aggregates. It is demonstrated that the judicious selection of blade coating speed and addition of conjugated polymer optimize the morphology of SM-BHJ, providing guidelines for high performance SM-BHJs from roll-to-roll production. The crystallization of small molecules and fullerene phase separation in SM-BHJ blends are significantly impacted by the blade coating speed as well as the addition of a third component. The judicious selection of blade coating speed and the addition of a conjugated polymer optimizes the morphology of SM-BHJ, which will provide guidelines for high performance SM-BHJ from roll-to-roll production.

Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi

DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201703268

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