The Effect of additive on performance and shelf-stability of HSX-1/PCBM photovoltaic devices

How 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO) enhances performance of polymer solar cells based on polymer HXS-1 and fullerene [6,6]-phenyl C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC71BM) from 3.6% to 5.4% is scrutinized with several techniques by comparing devices or blend films spin-coated from dichlorobenzene (DCB) to those from DCB/DIO (97.5:2.5 v/v). Morphology of blend films is examined with atomic force microscopy (AFM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electron tomography (3-D TEM), respectively. Charge generation and recombination is studied with photoluminescence, and charge transport with field effect transistors. The morphology with domain size in 10–20 nm and vertical elongated clusters formed in DIO system is supposed to facilitate charge transport and minimize charge carrier recombination, which are the main reasons for enhancing power conversion efficiency (PCE) from 3.6% (without DIO) to 5.4% (with DIO). Furthermore, a two year inspection shows no significant impact of DIO on the shelf-stability of the solar cells. No visible degradation in the second year indicates that the morphology of the active layers in the devices is relatively stable after initial relaxation in the first year.

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► How additive DIO enhancing the performance of solar cells is studied.
► The morphology of HXS-1/PC71BM is investigated with AFM, TEM and 3-D TEM.
► The charge generation, recombination and transport are examined with PL and FET.
► The impact of DIO on shelf-stability of solar cells is studied.
► Domain of 10–20 nm and vertical elongated clusters are reasons for enhanced PCE.