Hot-Casting Strategy Empowers High-Boiling Solvent-Processed Organic Solar Cells with Over 18.5% Efficiency

Most top-rank organic solar cells (OSCs) are manufactured by the halogenated solvent chloroform, which possesses a narrow processing window due to its low-boiling point. Herein, based on two high-boiling solvents, halogenated solvent chlorobenzene (CB) and non-halogenated green solvent ortho-xylene (OX), preparing active layers with the hot solution is put forward to enhance the performance of the OSCs. In situ test and morphological characterization clarify that the hot-casting strategy assists in the fast and synchronous molecular assembly of both donor and acceptor in the active layer, contributing to preferable donor/acceptor ratio, vertical phase separation, and molecular stacking, which is beneficial to charge generation and extraction. Based on the PM6:BO-4Cl, the hot-casting OSCs with a wide processing window achieve efficiencies of 18.03% in CB and 18.12% in OX, which are much higher than the devices processed with room temperature solution. Moreover, the hot-casting devices with PM6:BTP-eC9 deliver a remarkable fill factor of 80.31% and efficiency of 18.52% in OX, representing the record value among binary devices with green solvent. This work demonstrates a facile strategy to manipulate the molecular distribution and arrangement for boosting the efficiency of OSCs with high-boiling solvents. The hot-casting strategy assists in the fast and synchronous molecular assembly in the active layer, which contributes to preferable vertical phase separation, donor/acceptor ratio, and molecular stacking. The profitable morphology is beneficial to charge generation and extraction, leading to top-ranked device efficiencies based on different matrixes and high-boiling solvents.image

Automated summary

This study presents a method for preparing organic solar cells (OSCs) using high-boiling solvents. The hot-casting strategy facilitates the fast and synchronous molecular assembly of both donor and acceptor in the active layer, leading to improved performance of the cells. Experimental results demonstrate that hot-casting OSCs achieve top-ranked device efficiencies based on different matrixes and high-boiling solvents.