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Inner alkyl chain modulation of small molecular acceptors enables molecular packing optimization and efficient organic solar cells

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Abstract

With the generation of Y6, organic solar cells have reached remarkable achievement of over 19% efficiency. Alkyl chain is of importance to modulate intermolecular stacking and possibly enhance optoelectronic properties of small molecule acceptors (SMAs). Three alkyl chains of 2-ethylhexyl, 2-butylocyl and 3-ethylheptyl were selected to obtain G6-EH, G6-BO and G6-EHep molecules, respectively. Compared to G6-EH and G6-BO, G6-EHep was found inducing unfavourable large domain size. Furthermore, we discover that 2-butyloctyl effectively inhibits monomolecular and bimolecular recombination, improves molecular packing, generates more balanced carrier mobility and enhances exciton dissociation. The SMA with 2-butyloctyl alkyl chains (G6-BO) shows the best electrical and morphological characteristics, achieving a higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 17.06%, with an open circuit voltage of 0.912 V, a short-circuit current of 24.22 mA cm−2 and a fill factor of 77.25%. Finally, using the ternary strategy by incorporating the G6-BO acceptor into PM6:BTP-eC9, we achieved a higher PCE of 18.13% with enhanced electron transport.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (21925506), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U21A20331, 81903743), the CAS Key Project of Frontier Science Research (QYZDB-SSW-SYS030), the Ningbo Key Scientific and Technological Project (2022Z117) and the Ningbo Natural Science Foundation (2021J192).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zhejiang Engineering Research Center for Energy Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo, 315201, China

    Yuntong Guo, Zhenyu Chen, Jinfeng Ge, Jinna Zhang, Lin Xie, Ruixiang Peng & Ziyi Ge

  2. School of Chemical Engineering, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014, China

    Yuntong Guo

  3. State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Wei Ma

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  1. Yuntong Guo
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  2. Zhenyu Chen
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  4. Jinna Zhang
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  5. Lin Xie
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  7. Wei Ma
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Correspondence to Wei Ma or Ziyi Ge.

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Supporting information The supporting information is available online at https://chem.scichina.com and https://link.springer.com/journal/11426. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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11426_2022_1451_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Inner alkyl chain modulation of small molecular acceptors enables molecular packing optimization and efficient organic solar cells

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Guo, Y., Chen, Z., Ge, J. et al. Inner alkyl chain modulation of small molecular acceptors enables molecular packing optimization and efficient organic solar cells. Sci. China Chem. 66, 500–507 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-022-1451-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-022-1451-2

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