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Enhance the performance of polymer solar cells via extension of the flanking end groups of fused ring acceptors

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Abstract

Two new fused ring electron acceptors (FREAs) IDT-IC-T and IDT-IC-B with thienyl or phenyl substituents at the terminal INCN unit are synthesized. Theoretical calculations indicate that the two acceptors dominantly favor an intermolecular π-π stacking between the flanking terminal groups. The twist angle between the aryl substituent and INCN unit has a significant influence on the π-π stacking distance of terminal unit. IDT-IC-T with a smaller twist angle has a shorter π-π stacking distance than that of IDT-IC-B with a larger twist angle. In addition, extending the conjugation also affects the blend film morphology. IDT-IC-T and IDT-IC-B based photoactive films show appropriate nanoscale phase separations; whereas, blend films based on the parent compound IDT-IC show large-size acceptor domains. As expected, PBDB-T:IDT-IC-T blend films show higher and more balanced electron and hole mobilities. Moreover, these two acceptors present a good charge-transport connectivity arising from the extended conjugation and the increased intermolecular overlapping. Ultimately, IDT-IC-T demonstrates the highest electron mobility (1.47×10−4 cm2 V−1 s−1) and the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.43%. As for IDT-IC, which only shows an electron mobility of 7.33×10−5 cm2 V−1 s−1 and a PCE of 5.82%. These findings provide a facile and effective way to improve the photovoltaic performance.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Fundation of China (21574013, 51673028) 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. Key Laboratory of Energy Conversion and Storage Materials, College of Chemistry, Key Laboratory of Theoretical and Computational Photochemistry, Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Shiyu Feng, Liangliang Wu, Yahui Liu, Cai’e Zhang, Xinjun Xu, Xuebo Chen & Zhishan Bo

  2. State Key Laboratory of Chemical Resource Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Danyang Ma & Shouke Yan

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  1. Shiyu Feng
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Correspondence to Xinjun Xu, Shouke Yan or Zhishan Bo.

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Feng, S., Ma, D., Wu, L. et al. Enhance the performance of polymer solar cells via extension of the flanking end groups of fused ring acceptors. Sci. China Chem. 61, 1320–1327 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-018-9252-9

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