In situ studies on the positive and negative effects of 1,8-diiodoctane on the device performance and morphology evolution of organic solar cells

The introduction of solvent additives is one of the most common approaches for enhancing the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells(OSCs).However,the use of solvent additives has some negative effects,and an understanding of how solvent additives affect OSCs is currently limited.In this study,we developed an in situ grazing incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering(GIWAXS)technique in the SAXS beamline(BL16 B1)at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility,and the additive effects of1,8-diiodoctane(DIO)on the performance and morphology evolution of the PTB7-Th/PC71 BM device was investigated in depth.The results revealed that the crystal size increased with the volume ratio of DIO,and a drastic evolution of lattice space and crystal coherence length was observed during thermal annealing for the first time,to our knowledge.The discrete PC71BM molecules dissolved by DIO have an effect similar to that of the nucleating agent for PTB7-Th,boosting the crystallization of PTB7-Th,reducing phase separation,and inducing more drastic morphological evolution during thermal annealing.Our results provide a deep perspective for the mechanism of solvent additives,while also showing the significance and feasibility of the in situ GIWAXS technique we developed at BL16 B1.

Subtle Side Chain Triggers Unexpected Two-Channel Charge Transport Property Enabling 80%Fill Factors and Efficient Thick-Film Organic Photovoltaics

To clearly show how important the impact of side chains on organic solar cells(OSCs)is,we designed three acceptors IDIC-CxPh(x=4,5,or 6)via subtle side-chain regulation.Despite this small change,significant distinctions were detected.IDIC-C4Ph devices achieve an optimal efficiency of 13.94%under thermal annealing,but thermal-assistant solvent-vapor annealing hugely suppresses the efficiencies to 10%.However,the C6Ph side chain endows extremely disordered stacking orientations,generating moderate efficiencies of~12.50%.Excitingly,the IDIC-C5Ph affords an unexpected two-channel p-p charge transport(TCCT)property,boosting the fill factor(FF)by up to 80.02%and efficiency to 14.56%,ranking the best among five-ring fused-ladder-type acceptors.Impressively,the special TCCT behavior of IDIC-C5Ph enables 470 nm thick-film OSC with a high FF of up to 70.12%and efficiency of 13.01%,demonstrating the great promise in fabricating largescale OSCs.