| 1. |
- Zhang, Xuning, et al.
(author)
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On the understanding of energy loss and device fill factor trade-offs in non-fullerene organic solar cells with varied energy levels
- 2020
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In: Nano Energy. - : ELSEVIER. - 2211-2855 .- 2211-3282. ; 75
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Fill factor (FF) is an important parameter governing the power conversion efficiency (PCE) in non-fullerene organic solar cells (NF-OSCs), which however is less studied than the other two parameters (short-circuit current J(sc) and open-circuit voltage V-oc). To understand how energy offsets, exciton and charge carrier dynamics impact the FF, four groups of bulk heterojunctions (BHJs) NF-OSCs are investigated with FFs varying from 0.61 to 0.78 under progressive changes of HOMO-HOMO offsets (Delta(HOMOs), from 0.09 to 0.24 eV). By pump-probe optical spectroscopy, we find that the FF exhibits a positive dependence on Delta(HOMO) and charge-separated state lifetime (tau(CS)) in the blends, a result of inhibited back charge transfers and recombination at the donor-acceptor interface under higher Delta(HOMO)s. Moreover, we observe a fast charge extraction with decreased sensitivity to internal electric-fields in high-FF devices. Despite these merits, the gains of FF are at the expense of increasing the voltage loss to non-radiative recombination in our studied systems. The combined results suggest that remaining appropriate energetic offsets is essential for controlling the carrier dynamics with longer-lived CS-states, restraining charge back transfer and reducing charge recombination toward high FFs and photovoltaic efficiencies.
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| 2. |
- Wang, Jianqiu, et al.
(author)
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A Comparative Study on Hole Transfer Inversely Correlated with Driving Force in Two Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells
- 2019
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In: The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. - : AMER CHEMICAL SOC. - 1948-7185. ; 10:14, s. 4110-4116
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We report a faster rate of hole transfer under a smaller AHomo in a comparative study of two group organic solar cells (OSCs) consisting of IT-4F as an acceptor and PBDBT and PBDBT-SF as donors. In the OSCs based on PBDBT. SF:IT-4F, a higher short-circuit current (J(SC)) was observed with a Delta(Homo) of 0.31 eV compared to a lower Jsc in PBDBT:IT-4F OSCs with a larger Delta(Homo) (0.45 eV). Intensive investigation indicates that the rate of transfer of a hole from IT-4F to PBDBT-SF or PBDBT is inversely proportional to the Delta(Homo) between IT-4F and donors. The larger Jsc in the PBDBT-SF:IT-4F device is attributed to a synergy of faster hole transfer, slower recombination, and rapid charge extraction enabled by desired morphology and balanced charge carrier mobilities with PBDBT-SF, suggesting that under a sufficiently high Delta(Homo), comprehensive considerations of the transport, film morphology, and energy levels are needed when designing new materials for high-performance OSCs.
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| 3. |
- Zhang, Xin, et al.
(author)
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Light-Up Lipid Droplets Dynamic Behaviors Using a Red-Emitting Fluorogenic Probe
- 2020
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In: Analytical Chemistry. - : AMER CHEMICAL SOC. - 0003-2700 .- 1520-6882. ; 92:5, s. 3613-3619
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Intracellular lipid metabolism occurs in lipid droplets (LDs), which is critical to the survival of cells. Imaging LDs is an intuitive way to understand their physiology in live cells. However, this is limited by the availability of specific probes that can properly visualize LDs in vivo. Here, an LDs-specific red-emitting probe is proposed to address this need, which is not merely with an ultrahigh signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio and a large Stokes shift (up to 214 nm) but also with superior resistance to photobleaching. The probe has been successfully applied to real-time tracking of intracellular LDs behaviors, including fusion, migration, and lipophagy processes. We deem that the proposed probe here offers a new possibility for deeper understanding of LDs-associated behaviors, elucidation of their roles and mechanisms in cellular metabolism, and determination of the transition between adaptive lipid storage and lipotoxicity as well.
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| 4. |
- He, Youjun, et al.
(author)
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Poly(4,8-bis(2-ethylhexyloxy)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b ]dithiophene vinylene): Synthesis, Optical and Photovoltaic Properties
- 2010
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In: JOURNAL OF POLYMER SCIENCE PART A-POLYMER CHEMISTRY. - : John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. - 0887-624X .- 1099-0518. ; 48:8, s. 1822-1829
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A new benzodithiophene (BDT)-based polymer, poly(4,8-bis(2-ethylhexyloxy)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b]dithiophene vinylene) (PBDTV), was synthesized by Pd-catalyzed Stille-coupling method. The polymer is soluble in common organic solvents and possesses high thermal stability. PBDTV film shows a broad absorption band covering from 350 nm to 618 nm, strong photoluminescence peaked at 545 nm and high hole mobility of 4.84 x 10(-3) cm(2)/Vs. Photovoltaic properties of PBDTV were studied by fabricating the polymer solar cells based on PBDTV as donor and PC70BM as acceptor. With the weight ratio of PBDTV: PC70BM of 1:4 and the active layer thickness of 65 nm, the power conversion efficiency of the device reached 2.63% with V-oc = 0.71 V, I-sc = 6.46 mA/cm(2), and FF = 0.57 under the illumination of AM1.5, 100 mW/cm(2).
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| 5. |
- Yao, Nannan, et al.
(author)
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Efficient Charge Transport Enables High Efficiency in Dilute Donor Organic Solar Cells
- 2021
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In: The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. - : American Chemical Society. - 1948-7185. ; 12:20, s. 5039-5044
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The donor/acceptor weight ratio is crucial for photovoltaic performance of organic solar cells (OSCs). Here, we systematically investigate the photovoltaic behaviors of PM6:Y6 solar cells with different stoichiometries. It is found that the photovoltaic performance is tolerant to PM6 contents ranging from 10 to 60 wt %. Especially an impressive efficiency over 10% has been achieved in dilute donor solar cells with 10 wt % PM6 enabled by efficient charge generation, electron/ hole transport, slow charge recombination, and field-insensitive extraction. This raises the question about the origin of efficient hole transport in such dilute donor structure. By investigating hole mobilities of PM6 diluted in Y6 and insulators, we find that effective hole transport pathway is mainly through PM6 phase in PM6:Y6 blends despite with low PM6 content. The results indicate that a low fraction of polymer donors combines with near-infrared nonfullerene acceptors could achieve high photovoltaic performance, which might be a candidate for semitransparent windows.
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| 6. |
- Zhang, Xin, et al.
(author)
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Tailorable Membrane-Penetrating Nanoplatform for Highly Efficient Organelle-Specific Localization
- 2021
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In: Small. - : Wiley-V C H Verlag GMBH. - 1613-6810 .- 1613-6829. ; 17:31
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Given the breadth of currently arising opportunities and concerns associated with nanoparticles for biomedical imaging, various types of nanoparticles have been widely exploited, especially for cellular/subcellular level probing. However, most currently reported nanoparticles either have inefficient delivery into cells or lack specificity for intracellular destinations. The absence of well-defined nanoplatforms remains a critical challenge hindering practical nano-based bio-imaging. Herein, the authors elaborate on a tailorable membrane-penetrating nanoplatform as a carrier with encapsulated actives and decorated surfaces to tackle the above-mentioned issues. The tunable contents in such a versatile nanoplatform offer huge flexibility to reach the expected properties and functions. Aggregation-induced emission luminogen (AIEgen) is applied to achieve sought-after photophysical properties, specific targeting moieties are installed to give high affinity towards different desired organelles, and critical grafting of cell-penetrating cyclic disulfides (CPCDs) to promote cellular uptake efficiency without sacrificing the specificity. Hereafter, to validate its practicability, the tailored nano products are successfully applied to track the dynamic correlation between mitochondria and lysosomes during autophagy. The authors believe that the strategy and described materials can facilitate the development of functional nanomaterials for various life science applications.
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| 7. |
- Li, Yongxi, et al.
(author)
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A fused-ring based electron acceptor for efficient non-fullerene polymer solar cells with small HOMO offset
- 2016
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In: NANO ENERGY. - : ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV. - 2211-2855. ; 27, s. 430-438
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A non-fullerene electron acceptor bearing a novel backbone with fused 10-heterocyclic ring (in-dacenodithiopheno-indacenodiselenophene), denoted by IDTIDSe-IC is developed for fullerene free polymer solar cells. IDTIDSe-IC exhibits a low band gap (E-g=1.52 eV) and strong absorption in the 600850 nm region. Combining with a large band gap polymer J51 (E-g=1.91 eV) as donor, broad absorption coverage from 300 nm to 800 nm is obtained due to complementary absorption of J51 and IDTIDSe-IC, which enables a high PCE of 8.02% with a V-oc of 0.91 V, a J(SC) of 15.16 mA/cm(2) and a FF of 58.0% in the corresponding PSCs. Moreover, the EQE of 50-65% is achieved in the absorption range of IDTIDSe-IC with only about 0.1 eV HOMO difference between J51 and IDTIDSe-IC. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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| 8. |
- Wang, Jianqiu, et al.
(author)
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Fast Field-Insensitive Charge Extraction Enables High Fill Factors in Polymer Solar Cells
- 2020
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In: ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces. - : AMER CHEMICAL SOC. - 1944-8244 .- 1944-8252. ; 12:34, s. 38460-38469
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Fill factor (FF) is a determining parameter for the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells (OSC). So far, nonfullerene (NF) OSCs with state-of-the-art PCEs exhibit FFs <0.8, lower than the values of Si or perovskite solar cells. The FFs directly display the dependence of photocurrent on bias, meaning that the competition between charge extraction and recombination is modulated by internal electric potential (V-in). Here, we report a study to understand key parameters/properties affecting the device FF based on seven groups of NF-OSCs consisting of widely used PBDBT-2F or PTB7-Th donors and representative NF-acceptors with FFs ranging from 0.60 to 0.78 and PCEs from 10.27 to 16.09%. We used field-dependent transient photocurrent measurements to reveal that fast and field-insensitive charge extraction at low V-in is an essential prerequisite for obtaining high FFs (0.75-0.8), which is enabled by balanced charge transport in steady and reduced bimolecular charge recombination in high purity phases. With bias-dependent quantum efficiency analysis, we further show that the recombination loss at low V-in in the devices with low FFs tends to be more significant involving excitons generated in the donor phase of blends. Our results provide relevance for how to improve the FF toward the boost of photovoltaic performance in NF-OSCs.
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| 9. |
- Xiang, Jiale, et al.
(author)
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In situ monitoring drying process to disclose the correlation between the molecular weights of a polymer acceptor with a flexible spacer and the performance of all-polymer solar cells
- 2024
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In: Journal of Materials Chemistry C. - : ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY. - 2050-7534 .- 2050-7526. ; 12:33, s. 13029-13039
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Molecular weight (Mn) and conjugation of polymers can profoundly influence the performance of all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) via nanostructures of bulk heterojunctions (BHJs). To study the correlation between Mn and the performance of all-PSCs based on an acceptor with a flexible conjugation-break spacer (FCBS), three batches of acceptors, named PYTS, were synthesized with different number-average Mn from 9, 13 to 19 kDa. Blends with a polymer donor PBDB-T, the all-PSCs based on PYTS with Mn of 9 kDa and 19 kDa, exhibit power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 5.99% and 9.43%, respectively, primarily due to the increased short-circuit current density (Jsc) from 13.02 to 18.73 mA cm−2. To disclose the impact of Mn on device performance, dynamics of mixed PBDB-T:PYTS solutions to solid BHJs is studied by monitoring the drying process with home-made in situ multifunctional spectroscopy, which demonstrates that PYTS with Mn of 19 kDa has a longer drying time than the PYTS with Mn of 9 kDa. Prolonged drying of the BHJs with higher Mn PYTS facilitates more tightly packed structures with higher crystallinity. A systematic investigation on the nanostructures of BHJs, charge generation, transport and recombination is carried out with grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS), transient absorption spectroscopy (TAS) and characterization of all-PSCs. The results indicate that increased crystallinity in the BHJs benefits exciton dissociation, electron transport, prolonged carrier lifetimes, and decreased non-geminate recombination rate constants in the corresponding devices. Combining the in situ study of drying and the investigation on films and devices provides us a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between Mn, the drying process, the nanostructures of BHJs and device performance. This work not only emphasizes the essential role of Mn in governing the device performance, but also exhibits recorded film formation through the in situ spectroscopy, enabling us to manipulate the nanostructure of BHJs by optimizing Mn of polymers and processing parameters.
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| 10. |
- Zhang, Jianyun, et al.
(author)
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Revealing the Critical Role of the HOMO Alignment on Maximizing Current Extraction and Suppressing Energy Loss in Organic Solar Cells
- 2019
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In: iScience. - : Cell Press. - 2589-0042. ; 19, s. 883-893
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- For state-of-the-art organic solar cells (OSCs) consisting of a large-bandgap polymer donor and a near-infrared (NIR) molecular acceptor, the control of the HOMO offset is the key to simultaneously achieve small energy loss (Eloss) and high photocurrent. However, the relationship between HOMO offsets and the efficiency for hole separation is quite elusive so far, which requires a comprehensive understanding on how small the driving force can effectively perform the charge separation while obtaining a high photovoltage to ensure high OSC performance. By designing a new family of ZITI-X NIR acceptors (X = S, C, N) with a high structural similarity and matching them with polymer donor J71 forming reduced HOMO offsets, we systematically investigated and established the relationship among the photovoltaic performance, energy loss, and hole-transfer kinetics. We achieved the highest PCEavgs of 14.05 ± 0.21% in a ternary system (J71:ZITI-C:ZITI-N) that best optimize the balance between driving force and energy loss.
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