Enhancing the Performance of Polymer Solar Cells by Using Donor Polymers Carrying Discretely Distributed Side Chains

Conjugated polymers with three components, P1-1 and P1-2, were prepared by one-pot Stille polymerization. The two-component polymer P1-0 is only composed of a 5-fluoro-6-alkyloxybenzothiadiazole (AFBT) acceptor unit and a thiophene donor unit, while the three-component polymers P1-1 and P1-2 contain 10% and 20% 5,6-difluorobenzothiadiazole (DFBT), respectively, as the third component. The incorporation of the third component, 5,6-difluorobenzothiadiazole, makes the side chains discretely distributed in the polymer backbones, which can enhance the π-π stacking of polymers in film, markedly increase the hole mobility of active layers, and improve the power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of devices. Influence of the third component on the morphology of active layer was also studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), resonant soft X-ray scattering (R-SoXS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) experiments. P1-1/PC₇₁BM-based PSCs gave a high PCE up to 7.25%, whereas similarly fabricated devices for P1-0/PC₇₁BM only showed a PCE of 3.46%. The PCE of P1-1/PC₇₁BM-based device was further enhanced to 8.79% after the use of 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO) as the solvent additive. Most importantly, after the incorporation of 10% 5,6-difluorobenzothiadiazole unit, P1-1 exhibited a marked tolerance to the blend film thickness. Devices with a thickness of 265 nm still showed a PCE above 8%, indicating that P1-1 is promising for future applications.