Origin of poor photovoltaic performance of bis(tetracyanoantrathiophene) non-fullerene acceptor

Fast Recombination of Charge-Transfer State in Organic Photovoltaic Composite of P3HT and Semiconducting Carbon Nanotubes Is the Reason for Its Poor Photovoltaic Performance

Although the photovoltaic performance of the composite of poly-3-hexylthiophene (P3HT) with semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (s-SWCNT) is promising, the short-circuit current density j_SC is much lower than that for typical polymer/fullerene composites. Out-of-phase electron spin echo (ESE) technique with laser excitation of the P3HT/s-SWCNT composite was used to clarify the origin of the poor photogeneration of free charges. The appearance of out-of-phase ESE signal is a solid proof that the charge-transfer state of P3HT⁺/s-SWCNT^- is formed upon photoexcitation and the electron spins of P3HT⁺ and s-SWCNT^- are correlated. No out-of-phase ESE signal was detected in the same experiment with pristine P3HT film. The out-of-phase ESE envelope modulation trace for P3HT/s-SWCNT composite was close to that for the polymer/fullerene photovoltaic composite PCDTBT/PC₇₀BM, which implies a similar distance of initial charge separation in the range 2-4 nm. However, out-of-phase ESE signal decay with delay after laser flash increase for P3HT/s-SWCNT composite was much faster, with a characteristic time of 10 µs at 30 K. This points to the higher geminate recombination rate for the P3HT/s-SWCNT composite, which may be one of the reasons for the relatively poor photovoltaic performance of this system.

Halide Perovskite Crystallization Processes and Methods in Nanocrystals, Single Crystals, and Thin Films

Halide perovskite semiconductors with extraordinary optoelectronic properties have been fascinatedly studied. Halide perovskite nanocrystals, single crystals, and thin films have been prepared for various fields, such as light emission, light detection, and light harvesting. High-performance devices rely on high crystal quality determined by the nucleation and crystal growth process. Here, the fundamental understanding of the crystallization process driven by supersaturation of the solution is discussed and the methods for halide perovskite crystals are summarized. Supersaturation determines the proportion and the average Gibbs free energy changes for surface and volume molecular units involved in the spontaneous aggregation, which could be stable in the solution and induce homogeneous nucleation only when the solution exceeds a required minimum critical concentration (C_min ). Crystal growth and heterogeneous nucleation are thermodynamically easier than homogeneous nucleation due to the existent surfaces. Nanocrystals are mainly prepared via the nucleation-dominated process by rapidly increasing the concentration over C_min , single crystals are mainly prepared via the growth-dominated process by keeping the concentration between solubility and C_min , while thin films are mainly prepared by compromising the nucleation and growth processes to ensure compactness and grain sizes. Typical strategies for preparing these three forms of halide perovskites are also reviewed.