Efficient Polymer Solar Cells by Lithium Sulfonated Polystyrene as a Charge Transport Interfacial Layer

In this paper, we report the highly efficient bulk heterojunction (BHJ) polymer solar cells (PSCs) with an inverted device structure via utilizing an ultrathin layer of lithium sulfonated polystyrene (LiSPS) ionomer to reengineer the surface of the solution-processed zinc oxide (ZnO) electron extraction layer (EEL). The unique lithium-ionic conductive LiSPS contributes to enhanced electrical conductivity of the ZnO/LiSPS EEL, which not only facilitates charge extraction from the BHJ active layer but also minimizes the energy loss within the charge transport processes. In addition, the organic-inorganic LiSPS ionomer well circumvents the coherence issue of the organic BHJ photoactive layer on the ZnO EEL. Consequently, the enhanced charge transport and the lowered internal resistance between the BHJ photoactive layer and the ZnO/LiSPS EEL give rise to a dramatically reduced dark saturation current density and significantly minimized charge carrier recombination. As a result, the inverted BHJ PSCs with the ZnO/LiSPS EEL exhibit an approximatively 25% increase in power conversion efficiency. These results indicate our strategy provides an easy, but effective, approach to reach high performance inverted PSCs.