Achieving efficient flexible and large-area organic solar cells via additive-assisted fluorous solvent soaking

Developing flexible and large-area organic solar cells (OSCs) is of vital importance for advancing the commercialization. However, using solvent additives during the film deposition is tricky and unpredictable for the large-area device. Furthermore, typical post-treatments like high-temperature thermal annealing might cause the undesired deformation of the flexible substrate, thus adversely affecting the photovoltaic performance. Herein, a new device engineering namely additive-assisted fluorous solvent soaking (AFSS), is developed as an alternative approach for OSCs fabrication. No solvent additive is used in the active layer deposition, providing more uniform films in large-area processing. The fresh-made film is subsequently soaked in a mixture of fluorous solvent and a tiny amount of solvent additive, wherein the cyclic movement of the fluorous solvent associated with the additive could facilitate the molecular reorganization at relatively low temperature (40 °C), and thus optimizing the morphology of the active layer. Compared with the traditional method, AFSS is more effective in various OSCs including the rigid or flexible substrates and the conventional or inverted device architectures. An ultra-flexible and large-area device fabricated by AFSS realizes a PCE of 12.63%. This work provides a robust and practical strategy to fabricate OSCs as well as other optoelectronic devices at low temperature.