High-Performance Polymer Solar Cells with Zinc Sulfide-Phenanthroline Derivatives as the Hybrid Cathode Interlayers

Environmentally benign hybrid interlayers are prepared by modifying the zinc sulfide (ZnS) with phenanthroline/derivatives and utilized in inverted polymer solar cells (PSCs). Performances of the inverted PSCs are improved enormously by incorporating these hybrid interlayers, as which can effectively improve the energy level alignment, electron mobility, surface morphology, and interfacial contact. Greatly improved power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 7.79%, 8.00%, 7.47%, and 7.56% are achieved with these hybrid interlayers ZnS-BCP, ZnS-Bphen, ZnS-Mphen, and ZnS-Phen, respectively, compared to the PCE of 2.99% of the reference ZnS-based device, based on PTB7:PC₇₁BM active layer. Our results demonstrate that hybrid interfacial materials comprising inorganic and organic semiconductor possess promising potential to improve the performance of organic electronic devices, and set an example to develop this novel class of interfacial materials for electronic devices.