A simultaneous achievement of high performance and extended thermal stability of bulk-heterojunction polymer solar cells using a polythiophene–fullerene block copolymer

We report substantial improvements in efficiency and thermal stability of the poly(3-hexylthiophene):[6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) (P3HT:PCBM) bulk heterojunction (BHJ) system by adding a diblock copolymer P3HT-b-P(St89BAz11)-C60 (P3HT=poly (3-hexylthiophene), St=styrene, BAz=benzyl azide) as a compatibilizer. Small amounts of the diblock copolymer alter the interfacial morphology between the P3HT and PCBM components, resulting in a noticeable difference in phase segregation of the BHJ films, as evident in atomic force microscopy images. The best performance is observed in the P3HT:PCBM cell with 10% P3HT-b-P(St89BAz11)-C60, which exhibits substantially improved power conversion efficiency and thermal stability compared to the P3HT:PCBM control device.

► Thermal stability of P3HT:PCBM solar cells has enhanced with compatibilizer.
► Diblock-copolymer, P3HT-b-P(St89BAz11)-C60, has been used as the compatibilizer.
► The efficiency of devices with compatibilizer reaches 3.43% at 150 °C for 100 min.
► The device with compatibilizer retains over 90% of its performance at 150 °C for 10 h.