Two gallium porphyrins, a tetraphenyl GaCl porphyrin, termed as (TPP)GaCl, and an octaethylporphyrin GaCl porphyrin, termed as (OEP)GaCl, were synthesized to use as an electron cascade in ternary organic bulk heterojunction films. A perfect matching of both gallium porphyrins’ energy levels with that of poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) (P3HT) or poly[N-9′-heptadecanyl-2,7-carbazole-alt-5,5-(4′,7′-di-2-thienyl-2′,1′,3′-benzothiadiazole)] (PCDTBT) polymer donor and the 6,6-phenyl C71 butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM) fullerene acceptor, forming an efficient cascade system that could facilitate electron transfer between donor and acceptor, was demonstrated. Therefore, ternary organic solar cells (OSCs) using the two porphyrins in various concentrations were fabricated where a performance enhancement was obtained. In particular, (TPP)GaCl-based ternary OSCs of low concentration (1:0.05 vv%) exhibited a ~17% increase in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) compared with the binary device due to improved exciton dissociation, electron transport and reduced recombination. On the other hand, ternary OSCs with a high concentration of (TPP)GaCl (1:0.1 vv%) and (OEP)GaCl (1:0.05 and 1:0.1 vv%) showed the poorest efficiencies due to very rough nanomorphology and suppressed crystallinity of ternary films when the GaCl porphyrin was introduced to the blend, as revealed from X-ray diffraction (XRD) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The best performing devices also exhibited improved photostability when exposed to sunlight illumination for a period of 8 h than the binary OSCs, attributed to the suppressed photodegradation of the ternary (TPP)GaCl 1:0.05-based photoactive film.
