Entangled structure morphology by polymer guest enabling mechanically robust organic solar cells with efficiencies of over 16.5%

Intrinsically stretchable organic solar cells (IS-OSCs) have attracted great attention as a promising power source for wearable electronics. However, reconciling high power conversion efficiency (PCE), reasonable stretchability, and thermal stability is a grand challenge. Herein, we have successfully improved the ductility and morphological stability of the PM6:BTP-eC9 blend film through introducing polymer PY-IT to form entangled structure morphology. Compared with the binary blend, the ternary system exhibits suppressed diffusion and crystallization of BTP-eC9 acceptor and load distribution across the entangled chain networks to dissipate the local energy. As a result, high efficiencies of 16.52% were obtained for the flexible OSCs based on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. Impressively, the PCE of IS-OSCs based on the elastomer substrate also achieved 15.3%. In this work, the study about intrinsic stretchability and morphological robustness demonstrates that high-performance IS-OSCs constitute a major step toward practical utilization in malleable electronic textiles.

Automated summary

This study improves the stretchability and morphological stability of organic solar cells by introducing polymer and achieves high power conversion efficiency. The results of this study are of great significance for the practical utilization of malleable electronic textiles.