journal article·2026-01

Synergistic Enhancement of Efficiency and Mechanical Robustness in Flexible Organic Solar Cells via Solvent‐Assisted Aggregation Reconstitution of the Buried Donor Layer

Xingting Liu, Seunglok Lee, Huilong Chen, Yijin Lin, Jian Yu, Wenzhu Liu, Huizhen Xu, Weiguo Zhu, Changduk Yang, Xin Song

Advanced Functional Materials· Volume 36· Issue 7
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Abstract

Abstract The advancement of flexible organic solar cells (f‐OSCs) has long‐term been hindered by an intrinsic trade‐off between power conversion efficiency (PCE) and mechanical robustness, which is attributed to the severe aggregation of the active layer with significant mechanical fragility. Via combining layer‐by‐layer (LBL) fabrication process and solvent‐assisted aggregation reconstitution (SAAR) approach, 2‐bromothiophene (2Br‐Th) and bromobenzene (BrB) are systematically compared as processing solvents for regulating D18 donor layer. Owing to the asymmetric configuration with differentiated electrostatic potential distribution, 2Br‐Th demonstrates a strengthened electrostatic interaction with D18, which coherently suppresses excessive self‐assembly while maintaining an ordered molecular framework critical for efficient charge transport. More importantly, the improved dispersibility of the D18 donor layer after SAAR treatment greatly facilitates the interdiffusion of L8‐BO molecules into the donor matrix, which alleviates local stress concentration during deformation and simultaneously enhances exciton dissociation and charge transport dynamics. As a result, the optimized D18:L8‐BO achieved PCEs of 20.0% in rigid and 18.3% in flexible devices, along with a high crack‐onset strain (COS) value of 13.2% with enhanced mechanical stability. To the best of the knowledge, this represents the first demonstration of f‐OSCs concurrently achieving both high efficiency (PCE > 18%) and mechanical resilience (COS > 10%).
Source: crossref · Quality: baseline

Research context

OpenAlex topics: Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics · Perovskite Materials and Applications · Conducting polymers and applications

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

School of Materials Science and Engineering Jiangsu Engineering Laboratory of Light‐Electricity‐Heat Energy‐Converting Materials and Applications Changzhou University Changzhou 213164 P. R. China

School of Energy and Chemical Engineering Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) Ulsan 44919 South Korea

School of New Energy and Materials Southwest Petroleum University Chengdu 610500 P. R. China

Research Center for New Energy Technology Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai 201800 P. R. China

Graduate School of Carbon Neutrality Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) Ulsan 44919 South Korea

Funding

National Research Foundation of Korea · National Natural Science Foundation of China

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