Ternary organic solar cells featuring polythiophene

Abstract

Benefiting from the creation of new photovoltaic materials and innovations in device architectures, organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells are booming. Nonetheless, their prosperity is also accompanied by challenges, such as tedious synthetic routes, increasing costs and insufficient operational stability under practical stresses. Polythiophene, with a simple chemical structure, high scalability and excellent charge transport ability, is expected to be the most promising candidate among all kinds of polymer donors. Ternary mixing, as a simple and effective method for improving the efficiency and stability of OPVs, has attracted significant attention in recent decades. This review provides an overview of the recent advances in ternary OPVs based on polythiophene and discusses the role of various third components in three types of OPV active layers, where polythiophene serves as either the host material or additive, and also clarifies how the third component plays a role in determining morphology and device performance, and finally proposes future research directions for ternary OPVs featuring polythiophene. In short, this review provides insights into polythiophene-based multicomponent systems and helps readers better understand the relationships between morphology, efficiency and stability.