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ACS Publications. Most Trusted. Most Cited. Most Read
Measuring Temperature-Dependent Miscibility for Polymer Solar Cell Blends: An Easily Accessible Optical Method Reveals Complex Behavior

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Download Hi-Res ImageDownload to MS-PowerPointCite This:Chem. Mater. 2018, 30, 12, 3943-3951
    Methods/Protocols

    Measuring Temperature-Dependent Miscibility for Polymer Solar Cell Blends: An Easily Accessible Optical Method Reveals Complex Behavior
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    • Zhengxing Peng
      Zhengxing Peng
      Department of Physics and Organic and Carbon Electronics Lab (ORaCEL), North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, United States
      More by Zhengxing Peng
    • Xuechen Jiao
      Xuechen Jiao
      Department of Physics and Organic and Carbon Electronics Lab (ORaCEL), North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, United States
      More by Xuechen Jiao
    • Long Ye
      Long Ye
      Department of Physics and Organic and Carbon Electronics Lab (ORaCEL), North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, United States
      More by Long Ye
      Orcidhttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-5884-0083
    • Sunsun Li
      Sunsun Li
      State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
      More by Sunsun Li
      Orcidhttp://orcid.org/0000-0003-3581-8358
    • Jeromy James Rech
      Jeromy James Rech
      Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
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    • Wei You
      Wei You
      Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27599, United States
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    • Jianhui Hou
      Jianhui Hou
      State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
      More by Jianhui Hou
      Orcidhttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-2105-6922
    • Harald Ade*
      Harald Ade
      Department of Physics and Organic and Carbon Electronics Lab (ORaCEL), North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, United States
      *E-mail: [email protected]
      More by Harald Ade
      Orcidhttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-7871-1158
    Other Access OptionsSupporting Information (1)

    Chemistry of Materials

    Cite this: Chem. Mater. 2018, 30, 12, 3943–3951
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    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b00889
    Published May 23, 2018
    Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society
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    Abstract

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    In bulk-heterojunction polymer solar cells (PSC), the molecular-level mixing between conjugated polymer donors and small-molecule acceptors plays a crucial role in obtaining a desirable morphology and good device stability. It has been recently shown that the thermodynamic limit of this mixing can be quantified by the liquidus miscibility, the composition of the small-molecule acceptor in amorphous phases in the presence of small-molecule crystals, and then converted to the Flory–Huggins interaction parameter χ. This conversion maps out the amorphous miscibility. Moreover, the quantitative relations between χ and the fill factor of PSC devices were established recently. However, the commonly used measurement of this liquidus miscibility, scanning transmission X-ray microscopy, is not easily and readily accessible. Here, we delineate a method based on common visible light microscopy and ultraviolet–visible absorption spectroscopy to replace the X-ray measurements. To demonstrate the feasibility of this technique and methodology, a variety of conjugated polymers (PffBT4T-C9C13, PDPP3T PBDT-TS1, PTB7-Th, and FTAZ) and their miscibility with fullerenes or nonfullerene small molecules (PC71BM, PC61BM, and EH-IDTBR) are characterized. The establishment of this methodology will pave the way to a wider use of the liquidus miscibility and the critical miscibility-function relations to optimize the device performance and obtain good stability in PSCs and other devices.

    Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society

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    Supporting Information

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    The Supporting Information is available free of charge on the ACS Publications website at DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b00889.

    • Experimental details on the film fabrication, VLM images, UV–vis spectra of aggressively thermally annealed films, the fitted UV–vis spectra, STXM results, and GIWAXS patterns (PDF)

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    Cited By

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    This article is cited by 37 publications.

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    Chemistry of Materials

    Cite this: Chem. Mater. 2018, 30, 12, 3943–3951
    Click to copy citationCitation copied!
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemmater.8b00889
    Published May 23, 2018
    Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society
    Request reuse permissions

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