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Narrow bandgap molecular dyads Incorporating Y-series acceptor backbones for efficient single-molecular organic solar cells

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Abstract

The performance of organic solar cells (OSCs) is mainly related to the bulk heterojunction (BHJ) microstructure of specific active layer systems, which is often in a metastable state. A promising strategy to address the abovementioned shortcomings of BHJs is to develop single-component active layer materials. Owing to the single-component small molecule materials with defined chemical structures generally exhibit poor absorption spectra, herein we first introduced narrow bandgap Y-series acceptors into the molecular skeleton of single-component materials, and designed two molecular dyads, SM-Et-1Y and SM-Et-2Y. The optical bandgaps (\(E_{\rm{g}}^{{\rm{opt}}}{\rm{s}}\)) of the two dyads are 1.364 and 1.361 eV, respectively, which are much smaller than those of previously reported single-component molecules. Consequently, the SM-Et-2Y-based single-component OSCs (SCOSCs) showed a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.07%, superior to SM-Et-1Y (2.53%), which is one of the highest PCEs reported for SCOSCs to date. Moreover, both SM-Et-1Y- and SM-Et-2Y-based devices exhibited excellent photo-stability, retaining over 90% of their initial performance after 250 h of continuous illumination. Our results provide a deeper understanding of the molecular backbone and a guiding principle for the rational design or selection of non-fullerene single-component materials with suitable donor/acceptor ratios.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (52061135206, 22279094) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Institute for Advanced Studies, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Yuan Gao, Bo Xiao, Shanshan Wang, Mingxia Chen, Wei Wang, Xinrong Yang, Yiming Shao, Rui Sun & Jie Min

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  1. Yuan Gao
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  2. Bo Xiao
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  3. Shanshan Wang
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  5. Wei Wang
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  8. Rui Sun
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Correspondence to Wei Wang, Rui Sun or Jie Min.

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The supporting information is available online at chem.scichina.com and 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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Gao, Y., Xiao, B., Wang, S. et al. Narrow bandgap molecular dyads Incorporating Y-series acceptor backbones for efficient single-molecular organic solar cells. Sci. China Chem. 66, 3205–3212 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-023-1720-x

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