Synergistic effect of fluorination on both donor and acceptor materials for high performance non-fullerene polymer solar cells with 13.5% efficiency

A high performance polymer solar cells(PSCs) based on polymer donor PM6 containing fluorinated thienyl benzodithiophene unit and n-type organic semiconductor acceptor IT-4 F containing fluorinated end-groups were developed. In addition to complementary absorption spectra(300–830 nm) with IT-4 F, the PM6 also has a deep HOMO(the highest occupied molecular) level(-5.50 e V), which will lower the open-circuit voltage(V_(oc)) sacrifice and reduce the E_(loss) of the IT-4 F-based PSCs. Moreover, the strong crystallinity of PM6 is beneficial to form favorable blend morphology and hence to suppress recombination. As a result, in comparison with the PSCs based on a non-fluorinated D/A pair of PBDB-T:ITIC with a medium PCE of 11.2%, the PM6:IT-4 Fbased PSCs yielded an impressive PCE of 13.5% due to the synergistic effect of fluorination on both donor and acceptor, which is among the highest values recorded in the literatures for PSCs to date. Furthermore, a PCE of 12.2% was remained with the active layer thickness of up to 285 nm and a high PCE of 11.4% was also obtained with a large device area of 1 cm^2. In addition, the devices also showed good storage, thermal and illumination stabilities with respect to the efficiency. These results indicate that fluorination is an effective strategy to improve the photovoltaic performance of materials, as well as the both fluorinated donor and acceptor pair-PM6:IT-4 F is an ideal candidate for the large scale roll-to-roll production of efficient PSCs in the future.

Conjugate Heat Transfer Investigation on the Cooling Performance of Air Cooled Turbine Blade with Thermal Barrier Coating

A hot wind tunnel of annular cascade test rig is established for measuring temperature distribution on a real gas turbine blade surface with infrared camera.Besides,conjugate heat transfer numerical simulation is performed to obtain cooling efficiency distribution on both blade substrate surface and coating surface for comparison.The effect of thermal barrier coating on the overall cooling performance for blades is compared under varied mass flow rate of coolant,and spatial difference is also discussed.Results indicate that the cooling efficiency in the leading edge and trailing edge areas of the blade is the lowest.The cooling performance is not only influenced by the internal cooling structures layout inside the blade but also by the flow condition of the mainstream in the external cascade path.Thermal barrier effects of the coating vary at different regions of the blade surface,where higher internal cooling performance exists,more effective the thermal barrier will be,which means the thermal protection effect of coatings is remarkable in these regions.At the designed mass flow ratio condition,the cooling efficiency on the pressure side varies by 0.13 for the coating surface and substrate surface,while this value is 0.09 on the suction side.

Enhanced open-circuit voltage in methoxyl substituted benzodithiophene-based polymer solar cells

The open-circuit voltage(V_(oc))is one of the important parameters that influence the power conversion efficiency(PCE)of polymer solar cells.Its value is mainly determined by the energy level offset between the highest occupied molecular orbital(HOMO)of the donor and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital(LUMO)of the acceptor.Therefore,decreasing the HOMO value of the polymer could lead to a high V_(oc)and thus increasing the cell efficiency.Here we report a facile way to lower the polymer HOMO energy level by using methoxyl substituted-benzodithiophene(BDT)unit.The polymer with the methoxyl functionl group(POBDT(S)-T1)exhibited a HOMO value of-5.65 eV,which is deeper than that(-5.52 eV)of polymer without methoxyl unit(PBDT(S)-T1).As a result,POBDT(S)-T1-based solar cells show a high V_(oc)of 0.98 V and PCE of 9.2%.In contrast,PBDT(S)-T1-based devices show a relatively lower V_(oc)of 0.89 V and a moderate PCE of 7.4%.The results suggest that the involvement of methoxyl group into conjugated copolymers can efficiencly lower their HOMO energy levels.