A Chlorinated Donor Polymer Achieving High-Performance Organic Solar Cells with a Wide Range of Polymer Molecular Weight

In the field of non-fullerene organic solar cells (OSCs), compared to the rapid development of non-fullerene acceptors, the progress of high-performance donor polymers is relatively slow. The property and performance of donor polymers in OSCs are often sensitive to the molecular weight of the polymers. In this study, a chlorinated donor polymer named D18-Cl is reported, which can achieve high performance with a wide range of polymer molecular weight. The devices based on D18-Cl show a higher open-circuit voltage (V-OC) due to the slightly deeper energy levels and an outstanding short-circuit current density (J(SC)) owing to the appropriate long periods of blend films and less ([6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester) (PC71BM) in mixed domains, leading to the higher efficiency of 17.97% than those of the D18-based devices (17.21%). Meanwhile, D18-Cl can achieve high efficiencies (17.30-17.97%) when its number-averaged molecular weight (M-n) is ranged from 45 to 72 kDa. In contrast, the D18-based devices only exhibit relatively high efficiencies in a narrow M-n range of approximate to 70 kDa. Such property and performance make D18-Cl a promising donor polymer for scale-up and low-cost production.

Automated summary

In the field of non-fullerene organic solar cells, a chlorinated donor polymer named D18-Cl is reported in this study, which can achieve high performance with a wide range of polymer molecular weight. Devices based on D18-Cl show higher open-circuit voltage and outstanding short-circuit current density, resulting in higher efficiency compared to those based on D18.