Side-chain Engineering of Benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene Core-structured Small Molecules for High-Performance Organic Solar Cells

Xinxing Yin; Qiaoshi An; Jiangsheng Yu; Fengning Guo; Yongliang Geng; Linyi Bian; Zhongsheng Xu; Baojing Zhou; Linghai Xie; Fujun Zhang; Weihua Tang

doi:10.1038/srep25355

Side-chain Engineering of Benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene Core-structured Small Molecules for High-Performance Organic Solar Cells

Sci Rep. 2016 May 3:6:25355. doi: 10.1038/srep25355.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Soft Chemistry and Functional Materials (Ministry of Education of China), Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, 210094, China.
² Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Optical Information (Ministry of Education of China), Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing, 100044, China.
³ Key Laboratory for Organic Electronics and Information Displays (KLOEID) and Institute of Advanced Materials (IAM), Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials (SICAM), Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, 9 Wenyuan Road, Nanjing 210046, China.

Abstract

Three novel small molecules have been developed by side-chain engineering on benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene (BDT) core. The typical acceptor-donor-acceptor (A-D-A) structure is adopted with 4,8-functionalized BDT moieties as core, dioctylterthiophene as π bridge and 3-ethylrhodanine as electron-withdrawing end group. Side-chain engineering on BDT core exhibits small but measurable effect on the optoelectronic properties of small molecules. Theoretical simulation and X-ray diffraction study reveal the subtle tuning of interchain distance between conjugated backbones has large effect on the charge transport and thus the photovoltaic performance of these molecules. Bulk-heterojunction solar cells fabricated with a configuration of ITO/PEDOT:PSS/SM:PC71BM/PFN/Al exhibit a highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.99% after solvent vapor annealing.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't