High-performance Layer-by-Layer Processed Polymer Solar Cell <italic style="font-style: italic">via</italic> Solid Additive of Thermally-activated Delay Fluorescence

Meng-Ting Wang; Yi-Ming Wang; Fu-Gui Cai; Yi-Mei Zhang; Hong-Zheng Chen; Li-Jian Zuo

doi:10.1007/s10118-026-3653-2

Your Location：

Home >

Browse articles >

High-performance Layer-by-Layer Processed Polymer Solar Cell via Solid Additive of Thermally-activated Delay Fluorescence

RAPID COMMUNICATION | Updated：2026-07-10

- High-performance Layer-by-Layer Processed Polymer Solar Cell via Solid Additive of Thermally-activated Delay Fluorescence
- Chinese Journal of Polymer Science Vol. 44, Pages: 1-9(2026)
- Affiliations：
  
  a.State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, MOE Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
  b.Zhejiang University-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Hangzhou 310014, China
- Author bio：
  
  zjuzlj@zju.edu.cn
- Funds：
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-026-3653-2
  CLC：
- Received：18 January 2026，
  
  Revised：2026-02-13，
  
  Accepted：10 March 2026，
  
  Online First：09 July 2026，
  
  Published：15 August 2026
- Accepted：
Scan QR Code
Wang, M. T.; Wang, Y. M.; Cai, F. G.; Zhang, Y. M.; Chen, H. Z.; Zuo, L. J. High-performance layer-by-layer processed polymer solar cell via solid additive of thermally-activated delay fluorescence. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-026-3653-2

Meng-Ting Wang, Yi-Ming Wang, Fu-Gui Cai, et al. High-performance Layer-by-Layer Processed Polymer Solar Cell via Solid Additive of Thermally-activated Delay Fluorescence[J/OL]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2026, 441-9. DOI: 10.1007/s10118-026-3653-2.
Wang, M. T.; Wang, Y. M.; Cai, F. G.; Zhang, Y. M.; Chen, H. Z.; Zuo, L. J. High-performance layer-by-layer processed polymer solar cell via solid additive of thermally-activated delay fluorescence. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-026-3653-2 DOI：

Meng-Ting Wang, Yi-Ming Wang, Fu-Gui Cai, et al. High-performance Layer-by-Layer Processed Polymer Solar Cell via Solid Additive of Thermally-activated Delay Fluorescence[J/OL]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2026, 441-9. DOI: 10.1007/s10118-026-3653-2. DOI：

摘要

Abstract

Simultaneously optimizing the optoelectronic properties and the morphology of active layer is the key to high-performance polymer solar cells. Here

we present a novel materials-processing paradigm that incorporates a thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) additive into the layer-by-layer (LBL) fabrication process to concurrently optimize nanoscale morphology and mitigate non-radiative recombination. We demonstrate that the TADF additive facilitates the formation of an ideal interpenetrating network during LBL film deposition

while its intrinsic TADF properties effectively reduce non-radiative voltage loss

enhance exciton lifetimes

and facilitate charge generation and transport. Devices fabricated with this synergistic strategy achieve both high short-circuit current density and open-circuit voltage

culminating in a remarkable power conversion efficiency exceeding 20%. This work not only provides an efficient and reproducible processing route for high-performance polymer solar cells (PSCs) but also opens a new avenue for addressing fundamental optoelectronic limitations through coordinated material design and processing innovation.

关键词

Keywords

references

Inganäs, O. Organic photovoltaics over three decades. Adv. Mater. 2018 , 30 , 1800388..

Duan, L.; Hoex, B.; Uddin, A. Pro gress in semitransparent organic solar cells. Sol. RRL 2021 , 5 , 2100041..

Liu, C.; Xiao, C.; Xie, C.; Li, W. Flexible organic solar cells: materials, large-area fabrication techniques and potential applications. Nano Energy 2021 , 89 , 106399..

[Ding, X. Y.; Chen, T. Y.; Li, S. X.; Shi, M. M.; Chen, H. Z. Design, synthesis, and photovoltaic performance of asymmetric non-fused ring electron acceptors based on 3-cyanothiophene. Acta Polymerica Sinica (in Chinese) 2025, 56 , 515-526..

[Kong, X. L.; Zhang, X. J.; Zhang, J. Y.; Li, J.; Li, A. X.; Sun, C. K. Effect of various conjugated outer side chains on the photovoltaic performance of small molecule acceptors. Acta Polymerica Sinica (in Chinese) 2025, 56 , 1108-1117..

[Xiao, Z.; Li, L. Y.; Wan, X. J. Flexible transparent electrode substrates and their application progress in organic photovoltaics. Acta Polymerica Sinica (in Chinese) 2025, 56 , 1890-1909..

Tarique, W. B.; Uddin, A. A review of progress and challenges in the research developments on organic solar cells. Mater. Sci. Semicond. Process. 2023 , 163 , 107541..

Qian, D.; Zheng, Z.; Yao, H.; Tress, W.; Hopper, T. R.; Chen, S.; Li, S.; Liu, J.; Chen, S.; Zhang, J.; Liu, X. K.; Gao, B.; Ouyang, L.; Jin, Y.; Pozina, G.; Buyanova, I. A.; Chen, W. M.; Inganäs, O.; Coropceanu, V.; Bredas, J. L.; Yan, H.; Hou, J.; Zhang, F.; Bakulin, A. A.; Gao, F. Design rules for minimizing voltage losses in high-efficiency organic solar cells. Nat. Mater. 2018 , 17 , 703−709.

Cai, H. J.; Tan, R. X.; Dong, F. L.; Zhang, J.; Hu, Z. W.; Zhao, H. Y.; Liu, C. C.; Wang, M.; Huang, F.; Cao, Y. Conjugation length adjustment and application of oligomers based on benzodiindodione: conjugated polymer construction and carrier transport performance regulation. Acta Polymerica Sinica (in Chinese) 2025 , 56 , 286−298..

Tang, C. W. Two-layer organic photovoltaic cell. Appl. Phys. Lett. 1986 , 48 , 183−185.

Yu, G.; Gao, J.; Hummelen, J. C.; Wudl, F.; Heeger, A. J. Polymer photovoltaic cells: enhanced efficiencies via a network of internal don or-acceptor heterojunctions. Science 1995 , 270 , 1789−1791.

Wang, Y.; Yu, J.; Zhang, R.; Yuan, J.; Hultmark, S.; Johnson, C. E.; Gallop, N. P.; Siegmund, B.; Qian, D.; Zhang, H.; Zou, Y.; Kemerink, M.; Bakulin, A. A.; Müller, C.; Vandewal, K.; Chen, X.-K.; Gao, F. Origins of the open-circuit voltage in ternary organic solar cells and design rules for minimized voltage losses. Nat. Energy 2023 , 8 , 978−988..

Liu, S.; Yuan, J.; Deng, W.; Luo, M.; Xie, Y.; Liang, Q.; Zou, Y.; He, Z.; Wu, H.; Cao, Y. High-efficiency organic solar cells with low non-radiative recombination loss and low energetic disorder. Nat. Photonics 2020 , 14 , 300−305..

[Fu, J.; Li, H.; Liu, H.; Huang, P.; Chen, H.; Fong, P. W. K.; Dela Peña, T. A.; Li, M.; Lu, X.; Cheng, P.; Xiao, Z.; Lu, S.; Li, G. Two-step crystallization modulated through acenaphthene enabling 21% binary organic solar cells and 83.2% fill factor. Nat. Energy 2025, 1-11..

[Song, J.; Dai, G.; Zhang, H.; Kong, J.; Liu, L.; Li, Y.; Zhou, M.;Gu, R.; Jiang, D.; Wang, X.; Wang, X.; Liu, S.; Yan, J.; Yin, H.; Tang, Z.; Hao, X.; Yang, R.; Gao, F.; Sun, Y. Achieving 20.80% efficie ncy in ternary organic solar cells via suppression of static and dynamic disorder. Adv. Mater . 2025, e13740.

Wang, L.; Chen, C.; Gan, Z.; Cheng, J.; Sun, Y.; Zhou, J.; Xia, W.; Liu, D.; Li, W.; Wang, T. Diluted ternary heterojunctions to suppress charge recombination for organic solar cells with 21% efficiency. Adv. Mater. 2025 , 37 , 2419923..

Lu, H.; Su, W.; Wei, N.; Wang, X.; Chen, Y.-N.; Lin, Y.; Zhang, W.; Wei, Y.; Li, H.; Zhao, W.; Jia, L.; Liu, Y.; Ma, Z.; Bo, Z. High-efficiency ternary organic solar cells using isomer-free mono-fluorinated terminal group-based fused-ring acceptor as the third component. Adv. Energy Mater. 2025 , 15 , 2502316.

Yang, X.; Loos, J. Toward high-performance polymer solar Cells: the importance of morphology control. Macromolecules 2007 , 40 , 1353−1362.

Cui, C.; Li, Y. Morphology optimization of photoactive layers in organic solar cells. Aggregate 2021 , 2 , e31..

Li, G.; Zhu, R.; Yang, Y. Polymer solar cells. Nat. Photonics 2012 , 6 , 153−161.

Wang, Y.; Zheng, X.; Chen, T.; Wang, M.; Li, Y.; Kong, Y.; Fu, Y.; Song, Z.; Lu, G.; Bi, Z.; Ma, W.; Lu, X.; Chen, H.; Zuo, L. Deciphering the morphology evolution of layer-by-layer processing via in situ spectroscopy measurement for high-performance organic photovoltaics. Adv. Energy Mater . 2026 , 16 , 2403162..

Xu, S.; Zhang, Y.; Sun, Y.; Cheng, P.; Yao, Z.; Li, N.; Ye, L.; Zuo, L.; Gao, K. An unprecedented efficiency with approaching 21% enabled by additive-assisted layer-by-layer processing in organic solar cells. Nano-Micro Letters 2024 , 17 , 37..

Xie, X.; Ma, R.; Luo, Y.; Dela Peña, T. A.; Fong, P. W. K.; Luo, D.; Chandran, H. T.; Jia, T.; Li, M.; Wu, J.; Kyaw, A. K. K.; Li, G. Thickness insensitive organic solar cells with high figure-of-merit- x enabled by simultaneous D/A interpenetration and stratification. Adv. Energy Mater . 2024 , 14 , 2401355..

Vandewal, K.; Benduhn, J.; Tvingstedt, K.; Piersimoni, F.; Ullbrich, S.; Fan, Y.; Tropiano, M.; McGarry, K. A.; Zeika, O.; Riede, M. K.; Douglas, C. J.; Barlow, S.; Marder, S. R.; Neher, D.; Spoltore, D. Intrinsic non-radiative voltage losses in fullerene-based organic solar cells. Nat. Energy 2017 , 2 , 1−6.

Liu, Y.; Zheng, Z.; Coropceanu, V.; Brédas, J. L.; Ginger, D. S. Lower limits for non-radiative recombination loss in organic donor/acceptor complexes. Mater. Horiz. 2022 , 9 , 325−333..

Vandewal, K.; Ullbrich, S.; Benduhn, J.; Jia, X.; Nikolis, V. C.; Tvingstedt, K.; Piersimoni, F.; Roland, S.; Liu, Y.; Wu, J.; Fischer, A.; Neher, D.; Reineke, S.; Spoltore, D. Emissive and charge-generating donor–acceptor interfaces for organic optoelectronics with low voltage losses. Nat. Mater. 2019 , 18 , 459−464.

Gillett, A. J.; Privitera, A.; Dilmurat, R.; Karki, A.; Qian, D.; Pershin, A.; Londi, G.; Myers, W. K.; Lee, J.; Yuan, J.; Ko, S. J.; Riede, M. K.; Gao, F.; Bazan, G. C.; Rao, A.; Nguyen, T. Q.; Beljonne, D.; Friend, R. H. The role of charge recombination to triplet excitons in organic solar cells. Nature 2021 , 597 , 666−671..

Wong, M. Y.; Zysman-Colman, E. Purely organic thermally activated delayed fluorescence materials for organic light-emitting diodes. Adv. Mater. 2017 , 29 , 1605444.

Yang, Z.; Mao, Z.; Xie, Z.; Zhang, Y.; Liu, S.; Zhao, J.; Xu, J.; Chi, Z.; Aldred, M. P. Recent advances in organic thermally activated delayed fluorescence materials. Chem. Soc. Rev. 2017 , 46 , 915−1016..

Guo, L.; Wu, L.; Zhang, H.; Pan, Y.; Li, X.; Dong, X.; Kong, J.; Jee, M. H.; Mai, M.; Liu, S.; Woo, H. Y.; Jia, T.; Zhao, Z.; Gao, F.; Wang, Z.; Sun, Y. Dimeric acceptor with small singlet-triplet energy gap enables suppressed triplet loss and 20.85% efficiency of organic solar cells. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed . 2026 , 65 , e24341..

Wang, M.; Chen, T.; Li, Y.; Ding, G.; Chen, Z.; Li, J.; Xu, C.; Wupur, A.; Xu, C.; Fu, Y.; Xue, J.; Fu, W.; Qiu, W.; Yang, X.; Wang, D.; Ma, W.; Lu, X.; Zhu, H.; Chen, X.; Wang, X.; Chen, H.; Zuo, L. Synergistically optimizing the optoelectronic properties and morphology using a photo-active solid additive for high-performance binary organic photovoltaics. Energy Environ. Sci. 2024 , 17 , 2598−2609..

Uoyama, H.; Goushi, K.; Shizu, K.; Nomura, H.; Adachi, C. Highly efficient organic light-emitting diodes from delayed fluorescence. Nature 2012 , 492 , 234−238..

Qin, L.; Liu, X.; Zhang, X.; Yu, J.; Yang, L.; Zhao, F.; Hua ng, M.; Wang, K.; Wu, X.; Li, Y.; Chen, H.; Wang, K.; Xia, J.; Lu, X.; Gao, F.; Yi, Y.; Huang, H. Triplet acceptors with a D-A structure and twisted conformation for efficient organic solar cells. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020 , 59 , 15043−15049..

Pang, B.; Liao, C.; Xu, X.; Peng, S.; Xia, J.; Guo, Y.; Xie, Y.; Chen, Y.; Duan, C.; Wu, H.; Li, R.; Peng, Q. B◊N-bond-embedded triplet terpolymers with small singlet–triplet energy gaps for suppressing non-radiative recombination and improving blend morphology in organic solar cells. Adv. Mater. 2023 , 35 , 2211871..

Peumans, P.; Yakimov, A.; Forrest, S. R. Small molecular weight organic thin-film photodetectors and solar cells. J. Appl. Phys. 2003 , 93 , 3693−3723..

Lin, Y.-H.; Huang, W.; Pattanasattayavong, P.; Lim, J.; Li, R.; Sakai, N.; Panidi, J.; Hong, M. J.; Ma, C.; Wei, N.; Wehbe, N.; Fei, Z.; Heeney, M.; Labram, J. G.; Anthopoulos, T. D.; Snaith, H. J. Deciphering photocarrier dynamics for tuneable high-performance perovskite-organic semiconductor heterojunction phototransistors. Nat. Commun. 2019 , 10 , 4475..

Zhang, Y.; Liu, K.; Huang, J.; Xia, X.; Cao, J.; Zhao, G.; Fong, P. W. K.; Zhu, Y.; Yan, F.; Yang, Y.; Lu, X.; Li, G. Graded b ulk-heterojunction enables 17% binary organic solar cells via nonhalogenated open air coating. Nat. Commun. 2021 , 12 , 4815..

Liu, Y.; Yangui, A.; Zhang, R.; Kiligaridis, A.; Moons, E.; Gao, F.; Inganäs, O.; Scheblykin, I. G.; Zhang, F. In situ optical studies on morphology formation in organic photovoltaic blends. Small Methods 2021 , 5 , 2100585..

Mihailetchi, V. D.; Koster, L. J. A.; Hummelen, J. C.; Blom, P. W. M. Photocurrent generation in polymer-fullerene bulk heterojunctions. Phys. Rev. Lett. 2004 , 93 , 216601..

Riedel, I.; Parisi, J.; Dyakonov, V.; Lutsen, L.; Vanderzande, D.; Hummelen, J. C. Effect of temperature and illumination on the electrical characteristics of polymer–fullerene bulk-heterojunction solar cells. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2004 , 14 , 38−44..

Hartnagel, P.; Kirchartz, T. Understanding the light-intensity dependence of the short-circuit current of organic solar cells. Adv. Theory Simul. 2020 , 3 , 2000116..

Kong, Y.; Chen, H.; Zuo, L. Understanding the non radiative charge recombination in organic photovoltaics: from molecule to device. Adv. Funct. Mater. 2025 , 35 , 2413864..

[McAnally, S.; Brooks, E.; Lindsay, O.; Burn, P. L.; Gentle, I. R.; Shaw, P. E. High-efficiency Y6 homojunction organic solar cells enabled by a secondary hole transport layer. Small 2025, 2409485..

Views

Downloads

CSCD

Alert me when the article has been cited

Submit

Tools

Publicity Resources

Subtle Effect of Alkyl Substituted π-Bridges on Dibenzo[a,c]phenazine Based Polymer Donors towards Enhanced Photovoltaic Performance

Nanofiltration Membranes via Layer-by-layer Assembly and Cross-linking of Polyethyleneimine/Sodium Lignosulfonate for Heavy Metal Removal

Unsymmetric Side Chains of Indacenodithiophene Copolymers Lead to Improved Packing and Device Performance

Large-area, Flexible Polymer Solar Cell Based on Silver Nanowires as Transparent Electrode by Roll-to-Roll Printing

Microenvironment Responsive Polymeric Nitric Oxide Releasing Micelles for Enhancing Eradication of Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus Biofilm

Related Author

Chun-Xian Ke

Xue Lai

Heng-Tao Wang

Feng He

Yu-Lin Zhu

Tahir Rehman

Ming-Rui Pu

Qing-Yun Wu

Related Institution

Shenzhen Grubbs Institute and Department of Chemistry, Southern University of Science and Technology

Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Southern University of Science and Technology

Faculty of Materials Science and Chemical Engineering, Ningbo University

School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Sun Yat-sen University

College of Polymer Science & Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University

⁰

High-performance Layer-by-Layer Processed Polymer Solar Cell via Solid Additive of Thermally-activated Delay Fluorescence

DOI：10.1007/s10118-026-3653-2

摘要

Abstract

关键词

Keywords

references