Kinetics Manipulation Enables High-performance Thick Ternary Organic Solar Cells via R2R Compatible Slot-die Coating.

Power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells (OSCs) have crossed 18% mark largely fabricated by spin coating, and optimal photoactive thickness is limited to 100 nm. To increase reproducibility of results with industrial roll-to-roll (R2R) processing, we used slot-die coating coupled with ternary strategy for optimal performance of large are thick OSCs. Based on miscibility differences, we incorporated a highly crystalline molecule BTR-Cl and regulated the phase separation kinetics of D18:Y6 film. BTR-Cl provides an early liquid-liquid phase separation and early aggregation of Y6, which slightly improves the molecular crystallinity and vertical phase separation of ternary blends, resulting in high PCEs of 17.2% and 15.5% for respective thicknesses of 110 and 300 nm photoactive films. Our ternary design strategy for large area and thick films was further utilized to fabricate high-efficiency flexible devices, which promises reproducibility of our lab results from slot-die coating to industrial R2R manufacturing. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.