High-efficiency fullerene solar cells enabled by a spontaneously formed mesostructured CuSCN-nanowire heterointerface
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Fullerenes and their derivatives are widely used as electron acceptors in bulk-heterojunction organic solar cells as they combine high electron mobility with good solubility and miscibility with relevant semiconducting polymers. However, studies on the use of fullerenes as the sole photogeneration and charge-carrier material are scarce. Here, a new type of solution-processed small-molecule solar cell based on the two most commonly used methanofullerenes, namely [6,6]-phenyl-C61-butyric acid methyl ester (PC 60 BM) and [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC 70 BM), as the light absorbing materials, is reported. First, it is shown that both fullerene derivatives exhibit excellent ambipolar charge transport with balanced hole and electron mobilities. When the two derivatives are spin-coated over the wide bandgap p-type semiconductor copper (I) thiocyanate (CuSCN), cells with power conversion efficiency (PCE) of ≈1%, are obtained. Blending the CuSCN with PC 70 BM is shown to increase the performance further yielding cells with an open-circuit voltage of ≈0.93 V and a PCE of 5.4%. Microstructural analysis reveals that the key to this success is the spontaneous formation of a unique mesostructured p-n-like heterointerface between CuSCN and PC 70 BM. The findings pave the way to an exciting new class of single photoactive material based solar cells.
Date Issued
2018-04-01
Date Acceptance
2018-01-11
Citation
Advanced Science, 2018, 5 (4)
ISSN
2198-3844
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Advanced Science
Volume
5
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2018 The Authors. Published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (E
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (E
Grant Number
EP/J001473/1
EP/K503381/1
N/A
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Technology
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Nanoscience & Nanotechnology
Materials Science, Multidisciplinary
Chemistry
Science & Technology - Other Topics
Materials Science
copper (I) thiocyanate
fullerenes
mesostructured heterointerfaces
PCBM
solar cells
OPEN-CIRCUIT-VOLTAGE
ORGANIC PHOTOVOLTAIC CELLS
13-PERCENT EFFICIENCY
CHARGE SEPARATION
POLYMER
METHANOFULLERENE
TRANSISTORS
GENERATION
TRANSPORT
ACCEPTOR
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
1700980
Date Publish Online
2018-02-02