In close match with backbone engineering, side-chain engineering has become a critical parameter in the research area of conjugated polymers for controlling their solubility, compatibility, crystallinity, morphology, and so on which would further push up the performance of the devices based on these materials. In fact, a number of systematic researches have been carried out to investigate the effects of side-chain on molecular packing and morphology in the polymer donor?fullerene acceptor bulk heterojunction system which would directly influence the performance of the organic solar cell device. On the other hand, the research area of all-polymer solar cell have gained increasing attention due to the utilization of polymeric acceptor which has the advantages of low cost, wider absorption range of solar spectrum, controllable energy levels, and higher miscibility with donor materials compared to fullerene. Although intensive researches have been carried out to enhance the performance of all-polymer solar cell, development based on side-chain engineering is less focused but is crucial for the fundamental understanding of the materials chemistry which would lead us to the further improvement of the device performance.Here, we report high performance all polymer solar cells developed on the basis of backbone and side chain engineering. First, phase separation of the donor and acceptor polymers was tuned by changing the backbone of polymeric donor. Additionally, the phase separation size could be further optimized with side chain engineering of the polymeric donor. As a result, we obtained a record PCE of 4.8% (average from 20 devices), with an average JSC of 9.8 mA cm-2.

Combination of backbone and side-chain engineering to achieve high performance all polymer solar cell

248th National Meeting (2014)

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