Rubber-Toughened Organic Solar Cells: Miscibility–Morphology–Performance Relations

Abstract

Tough organic solar cell (OSC) active layers are necessary to achieve robust, flexible, and stretchable devices. A major challenge is that the brittle small molecule acceptor (SMA) in polymer/SMA bulk heterojunctions results in films prone to mechanical failure. To improve mechanical toughness, we investigate the use of a thermoplastic elastomer (styrene- b -ethylene-butylene-styrene) (SEBS) as an additive in high-performance photoactive layers. We find a consistent transition of all measured parameters [e.g., fracture energy ( G c ) and power conversion efficiency (PCE)] at a SEBS concentration of 5–10 wt %, which is driven by the miscibility of the SEBS. We use this insight to optimize the SEBS loading for PCE and toughness. Optimized OSCs are found to increase G c significantly with a marginal decrease in PCE, resulting in a record G c ·PCE metric, considering all OSC photoactive layers. The pronounced miscibility–function relationship provides a framework to optimize elastomer addition in OSCs for performance and toughness.