TY - JOUR
T1 - Uncovering the out-of-plane nanomorphology of organic photovoltaic bulk heterojunction by GTSAXS
AU - Xia, Xinxin
AU - Lau, Tsz Ki
AU - Guo, Xuyun
AU - Li, Yuhao
AU - Qin, Minchao
AU - Liu, Kuan
AU - Chen, Zeng
AU - Zhan, Xiaozhi
AU - Xiao, Yiqun
AU - Chan, Pok Fung
AU - Liu, Heng
AU - Xu, Luhang
AU - Cai, Guilong
AU - Li, Na
AU - Zhu, Haiming
AU - Li, Gang
AU - Zhu, Ye
AU - Zhu, Tao
AU - Zhan, Xiaowei
AU - Wang, Xun Li
AU - Lu, Xinhui
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong (General Research Fund No. 14303519, Joint Laboratory Funding Scheme Project no. JLFS/P-102/18, and NSFC/ RGC Joint Research Scheme Grant No. N_CUHK418/17), and CUHK direct grant (no. 4442384). We also thank the beam time and technical supports provided by 19U2 beamline at SSRF, Shanghai. Y.Z. thanks RGC of Hong Kong (General Research Fund No. 15305020) and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University grant (No. ZVRP). X.Z. thanks NSFC (No. 51761165023). H.Z. acknowledges the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0207700). X.L. and X.W. acknowledge support from Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory for Neutron Scattering Science and Technology (Grant no. 2019B121205003). The authors appreciate the helpful discussions with professor Peter Müller-Buschbaum and Xinyu Jiang.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12
Y1 - 2021/12
N2 - The bulk morphology of the active layer of organic solar cells (OSCs) is known to be crucial to the device performance. The thin film device structure breaks the symmetry into the in-plane direction and out-of-plane direction with respect to the substrate, leading to an intrinsic anisotropy in the bulk morphology. However, the characterization of out-of-plane nanomorphology within the active layer remains a grand challenge. Here, we utilized an X-ray scattering technique, Grazing-incident Transmission Small-angle X-ray Scattering (GTSAXS), to uncover this new morphology dimension. This technique was implemented on the model systems based on fullerene derivative (P3HT:PC71BM) and non-fullerene systems (PBDBT:ITIC, PM6:Y6), which demonstrated the successful extraction of the quantitative out-of-plane acceptor domain size of OSC systems. The detected in-plane and out-of-plane domain sizes show strong correlations with the device performance, particularly in terms of exciton dissociation and charge transfer. With the help of GTSAXS, one could obtain a more fundamental perception about the three-dimensional nanomorphology and new angles for morphology control strategies towards highly efficient photovoltaic devices.
AB - The bulk morphology of the active layer of organic solar cells (OSCs) is known to be crucial to the device performance. The thin film device structure breaks the symmetry into the in-plane direction and out-of-plane direction with respect to the substrate, leading to an intrinsic anisotropy in the bulk morphology. However, the characterization of out-of-plane nanomorphology within the active layer remains a grand challenge. Here, we utilized an X-ray scattering technique, Grazing-incident Transmission Small-angle X-ray Scattering (GTSAXS), to uncover this new morphology dimension. This technique was implemented on the model systems based on fullerene derivative (P3HT:PC71BM) and non-fullerene systems (PBDBT:ITIC, PM6:Y6), which demonstrated the successful extraction of the quantitative out-of-plane acceptor domain size of OSC systems. The detected in-plane and out-of-plane domain sizes show strong correlations with the device performance, particularly in terms of exciton dissociation and charge transfer. With the help of GTSAXS, one could obtain a more fundamental perception about the three-dimensional nanomorphology and new angles for morphology control strategies towards highly efficient photovoltaic devices.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118378523&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-021-26510-6
DO - 10.1038/s41467-021-26510-6
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 34711821
AN - SCOPUS:85118378523
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 12
SP - 1
EP - 10
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 6226
ER -
