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Influence of the replacement of alkoxyl with alkylthienyl on photovoltaic properties of two small molecule donors for organic solar cells

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Abstract

Two benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene (BDT)-based small molecule (SM) donor materials with identical conjugated backbones but different substitution groups, named as DRTB-O and DRTB-T, were well explored to demonstrate the influence of the replacement of alkoxy with alkylthienyl on their photovoltaic properties in fullerene-based and fullerene-free organic solar cells (OSCs). The study shows that the two SM donors possess similar absorption spectra and energy levels but different crystalline structures in solid films. The carrier transport property and phase separation morphologies of the blend films have also been fully investigated. By employing PC71BM as the acceptor, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of DRTB-O:PC71BM and DRTB-T:PC71BM based devices were 4.91% and 7.08%, respectively. However, by blending with IDIC, the two SM donors exhibited distinctly different photovoltaic properties in fullerene-free OSCs, and the PCE of DRTB-O:IDIC and DRTB-T:IDIC based devices were 0.15% and 9.06%, respectively. These results indicate that the replacement of alkoxyl with alkylthienyl in designing SM donor materials plays an important role in the application of fullerene-free OSCs.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2014CB643501), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21325419, 51373181, 91333204, 91633301).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Biology Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Shaoqing Zhang, Liyan Yang & Jianhui Hou

  2. State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Shaoqing Zhang, Liyan Yang, Delong Liu, Chang He, Yun Zhang & Jianhui Hou

  3. Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, 100190, China

    Jianqi Zhang

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  1. Shaoqing Zhang
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  2. Liyan Yang
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  4. Chang He
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Correspondence to Chang He or Jianhui Hou.

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11426_2017_9121_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Influence of the Replacement of Alkoxyl with Alkylthienyl on Photovoltaic Properties of Two Small Molecule Donors for Organic Solar Cells

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Zhang, S., Yang, L., Liu, D. et al. Influence of the replacement of alkoxyl with alkylthienyl on photovoltaic properties of two small molecule donors for organic solar cells. Sci. China Chem. 60, 1340–1348 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-017-9121-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-017-9121-0

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