Chemisorption-Induced Robust and Homogeneous Tungsten Disulfide Interlayer Enables Stable PEDOT-Free Organic Solar Cells with Over 19% Efficiency.

Ma, Xiaohui; Li, Tao; Song, Gang; He, Zhicai; Cao, Yong · Nano Lett · 2024

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Construction of a high-quality charge transport layer (CTL) with intimate contact with the substrate via tailored interface engineering is crucial to increase the overall charge transfer kinetics and stability for a bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cell (OSC). Here, we demonstrate a surface chemistry strategy to achieve a homogeneous composite hole transport layer (C-HTL) with robust substrate contact by self-assembling two-dimensional tungsten disulfide (WS<sub>2</sub>) nanosheets on a thin molybdenum oxide (MoO<sub>3</sub>) film-evaporated indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate. It is found that over such a well-defined C-HTL, WS<sub>2</sub> is homogeneously tethered on the ITO/MoO<sub>3</sub> substrate stemming from the strong electronic coupling interaction between the building blocks, which enables a favorable interfacial configuration in terms of uniformity. As a result, the D18:L8-BO-based OSC with C-HTL exhibits a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.23%, an 11% improvement over the WS<sub>2</sub>-based control device, and the highest efficiency among single-junction PEDOT-free binary BHJ OSCs.