https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01129-0
Regular Article
Probing the properties of polymer/non-fullerene/fullerene bulk heterojunction ternary blend solar cells, study of varied blend ratios of PBDB-T:ITIC-Th:PC71BM
1 School of Chemistry, Molecular Sciences Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits, 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa
2 School of Physics, Material Physics Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits, 2050, Johannesburg, South Africa
Received:
3
October
2020
Accepted:
15
January
2021
Published online: 3 February 2021
A major noble way to realizing high-efficiency organic solar cell device is the use of ternary blends with non-fullerene acceptors. Although offset in the band gap (E-gap) of the donor/acceptor material is negligible, it still exhibits ultra-fast and efficient charge separation. Regardless of the progress made, device optimization and fundamental understanding of the role of structural configurations in charge transport mechanisms is still on the way. The performances and stability of such devices largely depend on the nanoscale solid-state interpenetrating morphology of their donor/acceptor components within the photoactive region. Here, we analyze the effects of the second acceptor material PC71BM which is fullerene derivative on the nano-morphology within the bulk-heterojunction active layer made of PBDB-T (as donor) and non-fullerene derivative ITIC-Th (as acceptor) as well as the photovoltaic performance. Upon varying the blend ratio, 2:1:1 ratio showed a remarkable performance with more photo-generated current resulting from the favorable nano-scaled interpenetrating network with less traps as can be visualized in Fig. 1.
Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01129-0.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021
