Highly efficient ternary polymer solar cell with two non-fullerene acceptors

Polymer solar cells (PSCs) based on binary and ternary active layers were built using PBDB-T polymer as donor and two non-fullerene acceptors (MPU2 and MPU3) with different DPP cores and terminal units but different conjugation length. The studied binary PSCs showed PCE (power conversion efficiency) values of 8.22% (PBDB-T:MPU2) and 9.77% (PBDB-T:MPU3). The VOC measured using the MPU3-based acceptor was higher than that obtained using MPU2 – this difference is attributed to a higher LUMO energy level of MPU3. MPU2 and MPU3 present complementary absorptions in the wavelength range where PBDB-T exhibits a poor absorption, thus the combination of these materials offers great potential for the fabrication of ternary PSCs. The solar cell with an optimized ternary layer PBDB-T:MPU2:MPU3 (1:1:1) showed an PCE value of 10.78%, higher than those obtained for the binary devices due to the enhanced of JSC and FF values. And, since the emission of MPU3 partially overlaps with the absorption of MPU2, the transfer of energy from MPU3 to MPU2 can improve the exciton utilization efficiency and achieve enhanced overall power conversion efficiency in this ternary solar cell.