A simple method to adjust the morphology of gradient three-dimensional PTB7-Th:PC71BM polymer solar cells

Abstract

Multiple interfaces are necessary for exciton separation in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells and continuous pathways for carrier transportation in donor : acceptor blend films, especially along the vertical direction, for efficient charge collection. Therefore film morphology is critically important to satisfy both in the construction of high performance organic solar cells (OSCs). In this work, the cooperative effect of solvent additives and solvent flux treatment on film morphology was confirmed. Furthermore, the correlation between a single processing parameter and the resulting morphology has been investigated. Our results show that film morphology can be tuned by changing the volume fraction of the solvent additive. Beyond that, after methanol fluxing, the OSC performance improves significantly, as short circuit current density (J_SC) increases from 13.85 mA cm⁻² to 15.17 mA cm⁻² and fill factor (FF) from 62.9% to 65.7%, simultaneously. As a result, power conversion efficiency (PCE) increases from 6.79% to 7.67%. The favorable morphology was further investigated using time-of-flight secondary-ion mass spectroscopy (TOF-SIMS), and atomic force microscopy (AFM).