Polymeric Additive for Flexible All-Polymer Solar Cells

Abstract

Considering the potential applications of all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) as wearable power generators, it is urgent to develop photoactive layers that possess intrinsic mechanical endurance while maintaining a high power-conversion efficiency (PCE). We herein demonstrate a strategy to simultaneously control the intercalation behavior and nanocrystallite size in the polymer–polymer blend by using a newly developed high-viscosity polymeric additive, poly(dimethylsiloxane-co-methyl phenethylsiloxane) (PDPS), into the TQ-F:N2200 all-PSC matrix. A mechanically robust blend film, 10PDPS with a great toughness of 9.67 MJ m−3 and elongation at a break of 50.92% was obtained, affording negligible loss of the initial PCE (~7.0%) in conventional devices. This allows to fabricate highly flexible all-PSCs with a satisfactory PCE of 5.60% while retaining 90% of its efficiency after 100 bending cycles at a bending radius of 3 mm. Our results provide a feasible route for producing high-performance ductile all-PSCs, which can potentially be used to realize stretchable all-PSCs as a linchpin of next generation electronics.