Morphological Stabilization in Organic Solar Cells via a Fluorene-Based Crosslinker for Enhanced Efficiency and Thermal Stability

Power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) and device stability are two key technical factors restricting the commercialization of organic solar cells (OSCs). In the past decades, though the PCEs of OSCs have been significantly enhanced, device instability, especially in the state-of-the-art nonfullerene system, still needs to be solved. In this work, an effective crosslinker (namely, DTODF-4F), with conjugated fluorene-based backbone and crosslinkable epoxy side-chains, has been designed and synthesized, which is introduced to enhance the morphological stabilization of the PM6:Y6-based film. This crosslinker with two epoxy groups can be in situ crosslinked into a stable network structure under ultraviolet radiation. We demonstrate that DTODF-4F, which acted as a third component, can promote the exciton dissociation rate and reduce traps/defects, finally resulting in the enhancement of efficiency. In particular, the OSC devices exhibit better stability under continuous heating owing to the morphology fixation of the bulk heterojunction. This work drives the development direction of morphological stabilization to further improve the performance and stability of OSCs.