Efficient Ternary Organic Solar Cells Enabled by the Integration of Nonfullerene and Fullerene Acceptors with a Broad Composition Tolerance

The ternary structure that combines fullerene and nonfullerene acceptors in a photoactive layer is demonstrated as an effective approach for boosting the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic solar cells (OSCs). Here, highly efficient ternary OSCs comprising a wide-bandgap polymer donor (PBT1-C), a narrow-bandgap nonfullerene acceptor (IT-2F), and a typical fullerene derivative (PC₇₁BM) are reported. It is found that the addition of PC₇₁BM into the PBT1-C:IT-2F blend not only increases the device efficiency up to 12.2%, but also improves the ambient stability of the OSCs. Detailed investigations indicate that the improvement in photovoltaic performance benefits from synergistic effects of increased photon-harvesting, enhanced charge separation and transport, suppressed trap-assisted recombination, and optimized film morphology. Moreover, it is noticed that such a ternary system exhibits excellent tolerance to the PC₇₁BM component, for which PCEs over 11.2% can be maintained throughout the whole blend ratios, higher than that (11.0%) of PBT1-C:IT-2F binary reference device.