Improved efficiency of bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells by doping low-bandgap small molecules

We present performance improved ternary bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells by doping a small molecule, 2,4-bis[4-(N,N-diisobutylamino)-2,6- dihydroxyphenyl] squaraine (DIB-SQ), into the common binary blend of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and [6,6]-phenyl-C₇₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PC₇₁BM). The optimized power conversion efficiency (PCE) of P3HT:PC₇₁BM-based cells was improved from 3.05% to 3.72% by doping 1.2 wt % DIB-SQ as the second electron donor, which corresponds to ∼22% PCE enhancement. The main contributions of doping DIB-SQ material on the improved performance of PSCs can be summarized as (i) harvesting more photons in the low-energy range, (ii) increased exciton dissociation, energy transfer, and charge carrier transport in the ternary blend films. The energy transfer process from P3HT to DIB-SQ is demonstrated by time-resolved transient photoluminescence spectra through monitoring the lifetime of 700 nm emission from neat P3HT, DIB-SQ and blended P3HT:DIB-SQ solutions. The lifetime of 700 nm emission is increased from 0.9 ns for neat P3HT solution, to 4.9 ns for neat DIB-SQ solution, to 6.2 ns for P3HT:DIB-SQ blend solution.