Nonfused Ring Electron Acceptors for Ternary Polymer Solar Cells with Low Energy Loss and Efficiency Over 18%

Abstract Ternary polymer solar cells(PSCs) have been identified as an effective approach to improving power conversion efficiency (PCE) of binary PSCs. However, most of the third component, especially Y‐series non‐fullerene acceptors, is a fused ring acceptor which often requires a rather tedious synthesis and the use of hazardous organostannane reagents. In this work, two nonfused ring acceptors IOEH‐4F and IOEH‐N2F are synthesized by a green synthetic route and incorporated into PM6:Y6 blend. Encouragingly, the IOEH‐4F and IOEH‐N2F‐based ternary PSCs exhibited more efficient charge transfer, exciton separation, and lower energy loss than PM6:Y6‐based PSCs. And the IOEH‐4F and IOEH‐N2F‐based ternary PSCs achieved an impressive PCE of 17.80% and 18.13%, respectively, which are higher than that of PM6:Y6 based PSCs (16.18%). Notably, these PCE values are also the highest PCEs for ternary PSCs including non‐fused ring acceptors. Importantly, even when the IOEH‐N2F:Y6 ratios increased from 0.05:1.2 to 0.50:1.2, the PCE of IOEH‐N2F‐based ternary PSCs (16.70%) are still higher than that of PM6:Y6 based PSCs, indicating the great potential for cost saving. It is believed that the findings will help the design of better nonfused ring acceptors and the optimization of corresponding ternary PSCs with cost‐saving advantage.