Citation: Meng-Han Wang, Zhong-Yuan Xue, Zhi-Wei Wang, Wei-Hua Ning, Yu Zhong, Ya-Nan Liu, Chun-Feng Zhang, Sven Huettner, You-Tian Tao. Slight Structural Disorder in Bithiophene-based Random Terpolymers with Improved Power Conversion Efficiency for Polymer Solar Cells[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, ;2018, 36(10): 1129-1138. doi: 10.1007/s10118-018-2128-5 shu

Slight Structural Disorder in Bithiophene-based Random Terpolymers with Improved Power Conversion Efficiency for Polymer Solar Cells

a.
Key Lab for Flexible Electronics & Institute of Advanced Materials, Jiangsu National Synergistic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing 211816, China
b.
National Laboratory of Solid State Microstructures, School of Physics, and Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China
c.
Macromolecular Chemistry I, Universität Bayreuth, 30 Universitätsstr, 95447, Bayreuth, Germany

Corresponding author: You-Tian Tao, iamyttao@njtech.edu.cn
Received Date: 17 January 2018
Accepted Date: 14 February 2018
Available Online: 29 March 2018

A series of random terpolymers P2−P5 were designed and synthesized by randomly embedding 5 mol%, 10 mol%, 15 mol% and 25 mol% feed ratios of low cost 2,2-bithiophene as the third monomer to the famous donor-acceptor (D-A) type copolymer PTB7-Th (P1). All polymers showed similar molecular weight with number-average molecular weight (M_n) and weight-average molecular weight (M_w) in the range of (59−74) and (93−114) kg·mol⁻¹, respectively, to ensure a fair comparison on the structure-property relationships. Compared with the control copolymer PTB7-Th, the random terpolymers exhibited enhanced absorption intensity in a wide range from 400 nm to 650 nm in both solution and film as well as in polymer/PC₇₁BM blends. From grazing incident wide-angle X-ray diffraction (GIWAXS), compared with the regularly alternated copolymer PTB7-Th, the random terpolymers demonstrated mild structural disorder with reduced (100) lamellar stacking and slightly weakened (010) π-π stacking for the polymers as well as slightly reduced PC₇₁BM aggregation in polymer/PC₇₁BM blends. However, the measured hole mobility for terpolymers ((1.20−3.73) × 10⁻⁴ cm²·V⁻¹·s⁻¹) was evaluated to be comparable or even higher than 1.35 × 10⁻⁴ cm²·V⁻¹·s⁻¹ of the alternative copolymer. Enhanced average power conversion efficiency (PCE) from 7.35% to 8.11% and 7.79% to 8.37% was observed in both conventional and inverted device architectures from copolymer P1 to terpolymers P4, while further increasing the 2,2-bithiophene feed ratio decreased the PCE.
- Bithiophene-based random terpolymers,
- Structural disorder,
- Polymer solar cells,
- Photovoltaic properties
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