Fullerene mixtures enhance the thermal stability of a non-crystalline polymer solar cell blend
Journal article, 2014
Printing of polymer:fullerene solar cells at high speed requires annealing at temperatures up to
140 C. However, bulk-heterojunction blends that comprise a non-crystalline donor polymer often
suffer from insufficient thermal stability and hence rapidly coarsen upon annealing above the glass
transition temperature of the blend. In addition, micrometer-sized fullerene crystals grow, which
are detrimental for the solar cell performance. In this manuscript, we present a strategy to limit
fullerene crystallization, which is based on the use of fullerene mixtures of the two most common
derivatives, PC61BM and PC71BM, as the acceptor material. Blends of this fullerene mixture and a
non-crystalline thiophene-quinoxaline copolymer display considerably enhanced thermal stability
and largely retain their photovoltaic performance upon annealing at elevated temperatures as high
as 170 C.
Author
Camilla Lindqvist
Polymer Technology
Jonas Bergqvist
Linköping University
Olof Bäcke
Chalmers, Applied Physics, Eva Olsson Group
Stefan Gustafsson
Chalmers, Applied Physics, Eva Olsson Group
SuMo Biomaterials
Ergang Wang
Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology
Eva Olsson
Linköping University
Chalmers, Applied Physics, Eva Olsson Group
Olle Inganäs
Linköping University
Mats Andersson
Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology
Christian Müller
Chalmers, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Polymer Technology
Applied Physics Letters
0003-6951 (ISSN) 1077-3118 (eISSN)
Vol. 104 15 153301- 153301Subject Categories
Polymer Chemistry
Areas of Advance
Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Energy
Materials Science
DOI
10.1063/1.4870997