Effects of Flexible Conjugation-Break Spacers of Non-Conjugated Polymer Acceptors on Photovoltaic and Mechanical Properties of All-Polymer Solar Cells
Journal article, 2022

Highlights: A series of non-conjugated acceptor polymers with flexible conjugation-break spacers (FCBSs) of different lengths were synthesized.The effect of FCBSs length on solubility of the acceptor polymers, and their photovoltaic and mechanical properties in all-polymer solar cells were explored.This work provides useful guidelines for the design of semiconducting polymers by introducing FCBS with proper length, which can giantly improved properties that are not possible to be achieved by the state-of-the-art fully conjugated polymers. Abstract: All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) possess attractive merits including superior thermal stability and mechanical flexibility for large-area roll-to-roll processing. Introducing flexible conjugation-break spacers (FCBSs) into backbones of polymer donor (PD) or polymer acceptor (PA) has been demonstrated as an efficient approach to enhance both the photovoltaic (PV) and mechanical properties of the all-PSCs. However, length dependency of FCBS on certain all-PSC related properties has not been systematically explored. In this regard, we report a series of new non-conjugated PAs by incorporating FCBS with various lengths (2, 4, and 8 carbon atoms in thioalkyl segments). Unlike common studies on so-called side-chain engineering, where longer side chains would lead to better solubility of those resulting polymers, in this work, we observe that the solubilities and the resulting photovoltaic/mechanical properties are optimized by a proper FCBS length (i.e., C2) in PA named PYTS-C2. Its all-PSC achieves a high efficiency of 11.37%, and excellent mechanical robustness with a crack onset strain of 12.39%, significantly superior to those of the other PAs. These results firstly demonstrate the effects of FCBS lengths on the PV performance and mechanical properties of the all-PSCs, providing an effective strategy to fine-tune the structures of PAs for highly efficient and mechanically robust PSCs.[Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Flexible conjugation-break spacers

Polymer acceptors

All-polymer solar cells

Mechanical robustness

Stretchability

Author

Qiaonan Chen

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Jinan University

Yung Hee Han

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Leandro R. Franco

Karlstad University

Cleber F.N. Marchiori

Karlstad University

Zewdneh Genene Wolkeba

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

C. Moyses Araujo

Uppsala University

Karlstad University

Jin Woo Lee

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Tan Ngoc Lan Phan

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Jingnan Wu

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Aalborg University

Donghong Yu

Aalborg University

Sino-Danish Center for Education and Research Denmark

Dong Jun Kim

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Taek Soo Kim

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Lintao Hou

Jinan University

Bumjoon J. Kim

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

Ergang Wang

Zhengzhou University

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Nano-Micro Letters

23116706 (ISSN) 21505551 (eISSN)

Vol. 14 1 164

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Subject Categories

Polymer Chemistry

Polymer Technologies

Textile, Rubber and Polymeric Materials

DOI

10.1007/s40820-022-00884-8

PubMed

35962874

More information

Latest update

8/29/2022