Supramolecular alignment through one-step simultaneous and synergic blade coating and small molecule interface adsorption in organic solar cell fabrication
4 affiliations
- 1aInstitut de Ciència de Materials de Barcelona (ICMAB-CSIC), Carrer dels Til·lers, Cerdanyola del Vallès, 08193 Spain.
- 2bDepartment of Chemistry and Pharmacy, Profile Center FAU Solar, Interdisciplinary Center for Molecular Materials (ICMM), Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat, Erlangen-Nürnberg, Egerlandstr. 3, Erlangen 91058, Germany.
- 3cALBA Synchrotron, Carrer de la Llum 2-26, Cerdanyola del Vallès, 08290, Spain.
- 4dDiamond Light Source, Harwell Science & Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, UK.
Abstract
The orientation of π-conjugated polymers impacts organic solar cells (OSCs). Owing to their intrinsic anisotropy, when fully extended, their alignment is expected to boost device performances. While various strategies have been used to control orientation, in this work we present a simple, yet effective, approach to enforce polymer alignment at the interface with an electron transport layer in a bulk heterojunction OSC. As little as 3 weight % of an additive in the photoactive layer gives interface adsorption and polymer ordering. In doing so, light absorption and charge generation across the photoactive area are optimized, especially for thinner films. We demonstrate that the PM6:Y6 photoactive layer exhibits superior photovoltaic performance when blended with enantiomerically pure 1,1′-bi-2-naphthol (BINOL) at film thicknesses as low as 40 nm under otherwise identical conditions. BINOL promotes short range molecular order without compromising the phase segregation of PM6:Y6 when blade-coated. Overall, BINOL enhances charge transport and reduces recombination losses by interfacial adsorption of this and other hydroxyl-containing additives that induce polymer alignment. What results are higher power conversion efficiencies (PCE) with minimum materials use, which support a potentially scalable and cost-efficient OSC fabrication. Our strategy not only offers a straightforward route to enhance device performance but also provides new insights into the role of small molecules in influencing the structural order of organic semiconducting films at interfaces.
Related
- Design and fabrication of tri-liquid bifrustum–cylinder electrowetting lens
- Rapid fabrication of height-tunable high-aspect-ratio voxels by tailored Bessel beams
- Sequential Multistep Nanoimprint Lithography Fabrication of Zero-Mode Waveguide Nanoaperture Arrays to Enhance Single-Molecule Fluorescence Detection
- Design and fabrication of silicon photonic crystals for mid-infrared sensing applications
- Quantization-Aware Nonlinear Diffractive Neural Network for Robust Optical Image Reconstruction under Fabrication Constraints
BibTeX
@article{pancotti2026supramolecular,
title = {{Supramolecular alignment through one-step simultaneous and synergic blade coating and small molecule interface adsorption in organic solar cell fabrication}},
author = {Giulia Pancotti and Giovanni M. Beneventi and Sergi Riera-Galindo and Markos Paradinas and Martin Kreuzer and Giuliano Siligardi and Mariano Campoy-Quiles and Dirk M. Guldi and David B. Amabilino},
journal = {EES Solar},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1039/d6el00135a},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1039/d6el00135a},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Supramolecular alignment through one-step simultaneous and synergic blade coating and small molecule interface adsorption in organic solar cell fabrication
AU - Giulia Pancotti
AU - Giovanni M. Beneventi
AU - Sergi Riera-Galindo
AU - Markos Paradinas
AU - Martin Kreuzer
AU - Giuliano Siligardi
AU - Mariano Campoy-Quiles
AU - Dirk M. Guldi
AU - David B. Amabilino
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/01
JO - EES Solar
DO - 10.1039/d6el00135a
UR - https://doi.org/10.1039/d6el00135a
AB - The orientation of π-conjugated polymers impacts organic solar cells (OSCs). Owing to their intrinsic anisotropy, when fully extended, their alignment is expected to boost device performances. While various strategies have been used to control orientation, in this work we present a simple, yet effective, approach to enforce polymer alignment at the interface with an electron transport layer in a bulk heterojunction OSC. As little as 3 weight % of an additive in the photoactive layer gives interface adsorption and polymer ordering. In doing so, light absorption and charge generation across the photoactive area are optimized, especially for thinner films. We demonstrate that the PM6:Y6 photoactive layer exhibits superior photovoltaic performance when blended with enantiomerically pure 1,1′-bi-2-naphthol (BINOL) at film thicknesses as low as 40 nm under otherwise identical conditions. BINOL promotes short range molecular order without compromising the phase segregation of PM6:Y6 when blade-coated. Overall, BINOL enhances charge transport and reduces recombination losses by interfacial adsorption of this and other hydroxyl-containing additives that induce polymer alignment. What results are higher power conversion efficiencies (PCE) with minimum materials use, which support a potentially scalable and cost-efficient OSC fabrication. Our strategy not only offers a straightforward route to enhance device performance but also provides new insights into the role of small molecules in influencing the structural order of organic semiconducting films at interfaces.
SN - 3033-4063
ER -