Amine-based polar solvent treatment for highly efficient inverted polymer solar cells

Abstract

The interfacial dipolar polarization in inverted structure polymer solar cells, which arises spontaneously from the absorption of ethanolamine end groups, such as amine and hydroxyl groups on ripple-structure zinc oxide (ZnO-R), lowers the contact barrier for electron transport and extraction and leads to enhanced electron mobility, suppression of bimolecular recombination, reduction of the contact resistance and series resistance, and remarkable enhancement of the power conversion efficiency.

Keywords: inverted polymer solar cells (iPSCs); polar solvents; PTB7; zinc oxide; ripple structure (ZnO-R); ethanolamine.