Fengling Zhang

An Easily Synthesized Blue Polymer for High‐Performance Polymer Solar Cells

High performance solar cells fabricated from an easily synthesized donor-acceptor polymer show maximum power point up to 6.0 mW cm−2, with an open-circuit voltage of 0.89 V, short-circuit current density of 10.5 mA cm−2 and fill factor of 0.64, making this polymer a particularly promising candidate for high-efficiency low-cost polymer solar cells.

A Planar Copolymer for High Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells

An alternating copolymer, poly(2-(5-(5,6-bis(octyloxy)-4-(thiophen-2-yl)benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazol-7-yl)thiophen-2-yl)-9-octyl-9H-carbazole) (HXS-1), was designed, synthesized, and used as the donor material for high efficiency polymer solar cells. The close packing of the polymer chains in the solid state was confirmed by XRD. A J(sc) of 9.6 mA/cm(2), a V(oc) of 0.81 V, an FF of 0.69, and a PCE of 5.4% were achieved with HXS-1 and [6,6]-phenyl C(71)-butyric acid methyl ester (PC(71)BM) as a bulk heterojunction active layer spin-coated from a solvent mixture of 1,2-dichlorobenzene and 1,8-diodooctane (97.5:2.5) under air mass 1.5 global (AM 1.5 G) irradiation of 100 mW/cm(2).

An Easily Accessible Isoindigo-Based Polymer for High-Performance Polymer Solar Cells

A new, low-band-gap alternating copolymer consisting of terthiophene and isoindigo has been designed and synthesized. Solar cells based on this polymer and PC(71)BM show a power conversion efficiency of 6.3%, which is a record for polymer solar cells based on a polymer with an optical band gap below 1.5 eV. This work demonstrates the great potential of isoindigo moieties as electron-deficient units for building donor-acceptor-type polymers for high-performance polymer solar cells.

Electroluminescence from Charge Transfer States in Polymer Solar Cells

In this article we report the weak but omnipresent electroluminescence (EL) from several types of organic polymer:fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells biased in the forward direction. The light emitted from blends of some commonly used polymers and the fullerene molecule is significantly different from that of any of the pure materials comprising the blend. The lower energy of the blend EL is found to correlate with both the voltage onset of emission and the open-circuit voltage of the photovoltaic cell under solar illumination. We accordingly interpret the emission to originate from interfacial charge transfer state recombination and emphasize EL as a very valuable tool to characterize the charge transfer state present in donor/acceptor organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells.

Alternating Polyfluorenes Collect Solar Light in Polymer Photovoltaics

The effort to improve the energy conversion efficiency of polymer solar cells has led to the design of novel donor polymers. To improve open circuit photovoltages (OCVs) and the spectral coverage of the solar spectrum, researchers have looked for materials with high HOMO values, an easily modified electronic structure, and sufficient electronic transport within the polymers. One advance in design from our laboratories has been the development of a class of alternating polyfluorene copolymers (APFOs), which can be combined with fullerenes to make bulk heterojunction materials for photovoltaic conversion. This Account describes copolymers of fluorene that we designed to expand the range the optical absorption of solar cells to include wavelengths out to 1000 nm. In most cases, we combine these polymers with acceptors from the fullerene family, typically the phenyl C(61) butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) molecule, to generate solar cell materials. The synthesis of alternating copolymers of fluorene with various donor-acceptor-donor elements provides the opportunity to shift both HOMO and LUMO, which we have followed by electrochemical spectroscopy. Moving the LUMO of the APFOs farther from the vacuum level eventually leads to a situation where the driving force for photo-induced charge transfer from polymer donor to fullerene acceptor goes to zero, resulting in inefficient charge generation. Moving the HOMO level closer to the vacuum level reduces the OCV of devices made from bulk heterojunction blends. As we move the bandgap toward lower energies and increase the overlap of optical absorption with the solar spectrum, both these events eventually occur. In devices based on these APFO/fullerene blends, the performance depends on the OCV, the photocurrent under solar illumination, and the fill factor. The fill factor is influenced by electrical transport and charge generation. Optimizing these parameters requires new solutions to the perennial conflict between optically thin devices, where electrical extraction of charge is not a limitation, and the optically thick devices, where extraction of charge is hampered by trapping and recombination. As a result, we have developed methods to trap light in optically thin devices. When the thin film flexible solar cells are folded, multiple reflection between adjacent solar cells leads to a longer path length for the photon through the devices and considerable improvement of the optical dissipation in the active material. These optical tricks also enable an alternative route to tandem devices, where two different bandgap materials are located on adjacent folds. Thus light not absorbed in one cell is reflected onto the next cell to produce an effective optical series arrangement. Using experiments and simulations of the light trapping effects, we demonstrate power conversion efficiency enhancements of up to a factor of 1.8.

Infrared photocurrent spectral response from plastic solar cell with low-band-gap polyfluorene and fullerene derivative

Plastic solar cells were fabricated using a low-band-gap alternating copolymer of fluorene and a donor–acceptor–donor moiety (APFO-Green1), blended with [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methylester or 3′-(3,5-Bis-trifluoromethylphenyl)-1′-(4-nitrophenyl)pyrazolino[60]fullerene as electron acceptors. The polymer shows optical absorption in two wavelength ranges from 300<λ<500nm and 650<λ<1000nm. Devices based on APFO-Green1 blended with the later fullerene exhibit an outstanding photovoltaic behavior at the infrared range, where the external quantum efficiency is as high as 8.4% at 840nm and 7% at 900nm, while the onset of photogeneration is found at 1μm. A photocurrent density of 1.76mA∕cm2, open-circuit voltage of 0.54V, and power conversion efficiency of 0.3% are achieved under the illumination of AM1.5 (1000W∕m2) from a solar simulator.

Investigation on polymer anode design for flexible polymer solar cells

Bilayer polymer anode composed of poly(3,4-ethylene-dioxythiophene): polystyrenesulfonate (PEDOT:PSS) (PH500) and PEDOT:PSS (Baytron P VP Al 4083) was used to construct flexible polymer solar cells on plastic substrates polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with a device structure of PET/polymer anode/APFO-3:PCBM/LiF∕Al. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the indium tin oxide (ITO)-free solar cells achieved 2.2% under illumination of AM1.5 (100mWcm−2), which is 80% of the PCE of the reference cells with ITO on glass. The simplicity of preparing bilayer polymer anode and the comparable performance achieved in the flexible solar cells made the bilayer polymer anode an alternative to ITO for flexible solar cells produced by printing technology.

An isoindigo-based low band gap polymer for efficient polymer solar cells with high photo-voltage

A new low band gap polymer (E(g) = 1.6 eV) with alternating thiophene and isoindigo units was synthesized and characterized. A PCE of 3.0% and high open-circuit voltage of 0.89 V were realized in polymer solar cells, which demonstrated the promise of isoindigo as an electron deficient unit in the design of donor-acceptor conjugated polymers for polymer solar cells.

Folded reflective tandem polymer solar cell doubles efficiency

Conjugated polymers are promising materials for the production of inexpensive and flexible photovoltaic cells. Organic materials display tunable optical absorption within a large spectral range. This enables the construction of organic tandem photovoltaic cells. The authors here demonstrate a reflective tandem cell where single cells are reflecting the nonabsorbed light upon another adjacent cell. By folding two planar but spectrally different cells toward each other, spectral broadening and light trapping are combined to give an enhancement of power conversion efficiency of a factor of 1.8±0.3.

Geminate Charge Recombination in Polymer/Fullerene Bulk Heterojunction Films and Implications for Solar Cell Function

We have studied the influence of three different fullerene derivatives on the charge generation and recombination dynamics of polymer/fullerene bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cell blends. Charge generation in APFO3/[70]PCBM and APFO3/[60]PCBM is very similar and somewhat slower than charge generation in APFO3/[70]BTPF. This difference qualitatively matches the trend in free energy change of electron transfer estimated from the LUMO energies of the polymer and fullerene derivatives. The first order (geminate) charge recombination rate is significantly different for the three fullerene derivatives studied and increases in the order APFO3/[70]PCBM < APFO3/[60]PCBM < APFO3/[70]BTPF. The variation in electron transfer rate cannot be explained from the LUMO energies of the fullerene derivatives and single-step electron transfer in the Marcus inverted region and simple considerations of expected trends for the reorganization energy and free energy change. Instead we suggest that geminate charge recombination occurs from a state where electrons and holes have separated to different distances in the various materials because of an initially high charge mobility, different for different materials. In a BHJ thin film this charge separation distance is not sufficient to overcome the electrostatic attraction between electrons and holes and geminate recombination occurs on the nanosecond to hundreds of nanoseconds time scale. In a BHJ solar cell, we suggest that the internal electric field in combination with polarization effects and the dynamic nature of polarons are key features to overcome electron-hole interactions to form free extractable charges.