skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Intra-molecular Charge Transfer and Electron Delocalization in Non-fullerene Organic Solar Cells

Journal Article · · ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
ORCiD logo [1];  [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [2];  [4]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [4]; ORCiD logo [4];  [4];  [2]
  1. Shantou Univ., Guangdong (China). Dept. of Chemistry, Key Lab. for Preparation and Application of Ordered Structural Materials of Guangdong Province
  2. Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Dept. of Chemistry, The James Franck Inst.
  3. Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Inst. for Molecular Engineering
  4. Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Materials Science Division, Inst. for Molecular Engineering; Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States). Inst. for Molecular Engineering

Two types of electron acceptors were synthesized by coupling two kinds of electron-rich cores with four equivalent perylene diimides (PDIs) at the a position. With fully aromatic cores, TPB and TPSe have pi-orbitals spread continuously over the whole aromatic conjugated backbone, unlike TPC and TPSi, which contain isolated PDI units due to the use of a tetrahedron carbon or silicon linker. Density functional theory calculations of the projected density of states showed that the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) for TPB are localized in separate regions of space. Further, the LUMO of TPB shows a greater contribution from the orbitals belonging to the connective core of the molecules than that of TPC. Overall, the properties of the HOMO and LUMO point at increased intra-molecular delocalization of negative charge carriers for TPB and TPSe than for TPC and TPSi and hence at a more facile intra-molecular charge transfer for the former. The film absorption and emission spectra showed evidences for the inter -molecular electron delocalization in TPB and TPSe, which is consistent with the network structure revealed by X-ray diffraction studies on single crystals of TPB. These features benefit the formation of charge transfer states and/or facilitate charge transport. Thus, higher electron mobility and higher charge dissociation probabilities under Jsc condition were observed in blend films of TPB:PTB7-Th and TPSe:PTB7-Th than those in TPC:PTB7Th and TPSi:PTB7-Th blend films. As a result, the Jsc and fill factor values of 15.02 mA/cm2, 0.58 and 14.36 mA/cm2, 0.55 for TPB- and TPSe-based solar cell are observed, whereas those for TPC and TPSi are 11.55 mA/cm2, 0.47 and 10.35 mA/cm2, 0.42, respectively.

Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) (United States). Argonne-Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center (ANSER)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-06CH11357; SC0001059; DMR-1263006; CHE-1346572
OSTI ID:
1433912
Journal Information:
ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, Vol. 10, Issue 12; ISSN 1944-8244
Publisher:
American Chemical Society (ACS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 19 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (65)

Non-Fullerene Polymer Solar Cells Based on Alkylthio and Fluorine Substituted 2D-Conjugated Polymers Reach 9.5% Efficiency journal March 2016
High-efficiency and air-stable P3HT-based polymer solar cells with a new non-fullerene acceptor journal June 2016
Three-Bladed Rylene Propellers with Three-Dimensional Network Assembly for Organic Electronics journal August 2016
Molecular helices as electron acceptors in high-performance bulk heterojunction solar cells journal September 2015
Fast charge separation in a non-fullerene organic solar cell with a small driving force journal June 2016
Fullerene-Free Polymer Solar Cells with over 11% Efficiency and Excellent Thermal Stability journal April 2016
Reducing the efficiency–stability–cost gap of organic photovoltaics with highly efficient and stable small molecule acceptor ternary solar cells journal November 2016
A Thieno[3,4- b ]thiophene-Based Non-fullerene Electron Acceptor for High-Performance Bulk-Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells journal November 2016
A Wide-Bandgap Donor Polymer for Highly Efficient Non-fullerene Organic Solar Cells with a Small Voltage Loss journal April 2017
Recent Advances in Bulk Heterojunction Polymer Solar Cells journal August 2015
Molecular Optimization Enables over 13% Efficiency in Organic Solar Cells journal May 2017
Exploiting Noncovalently Conformational Locking as a Design Strategy for High Performance Fused-Ring Electron Acceptor Used in Polymer Solar Cells journal February 2017
Small-Molecule Acceptor Based on the Heptacyclic Benzodi(cyclopentadithiophene) Unit for Highly Efficient Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells journal March 2017
An Electron Acceptor Challenging Fullerenes for Efficient Polymer Solar Cells journal January 2015
More than Conformational “Twisting” or “Coplanarity”: Molecular Strategies for Designing High-Efficiency Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells journal March 2016
Additive-Assisted Control over Phase-Separated Nanostructures by Manipulating Alkylthienyl Position at Donor Backbone for Solution-Processed, Non-Fullerene, All-Small-Molecule Solar Cells journal March 2014
Push–Pull Type Non-Fullerene Acceptors for Polymer Solar Cells: Effect of the Donor Core journal July 2017
High-Performance Electron Acceptor with Thienyl Side Chains for Organic Photovoltaics journal March 2016
Covalently Bound Clusters of Alpha-Substituted PDI—Rival Electron Acceptors to Fullerene for Organic Solar Cells journal June 2016
Nonfullerene Polymer Solar Cells with 8.5% Efficiency Enabled by a New Highly Twisted Electron Acceptor Dimer journal October 2015
Efficient Polymer Solar Cells with High Open-Circuit Voltage Containing Diketopyrrolopyrrole-Based Non-Fullerene Acceptor Core End-Capped with Rhodanine Units journal March 2017
Effect of Non-fullerene Acceptors’ Side Chains on the Morphology and Photovoltaic Performance of Organic Solar Cells journal April 2017
Rational molecular engineering towards efficient non-fullerene small molecule acceptors for inverted bulk heterojunction organic solar cells journal January 2014
Non-Fullerene Electron Acceptors for Use in Organic Solar Cells journal October 2015
Donor–acceptor–donor type organic semiconductor containing quinoidal benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene for high performance n-channel field-effect transistors journal January 2014
Regioisomeric Non-Fullerene Acceptors Containing Fluorobenzo[ c ][1,2,5]thiadiazole Unit for Polymer Solar Cells journal October 2017
Ring-fusion as a perylenediimide dimer design concept for high-performance non-fullerene organic photovoltaic acceptors journal January 2016
π-Bridge-Independent 2-(Benzo[ c ][1,2,5]thiadiazol-4-ylmethylene)malononitrile-Substituted Nonfullerene Acceptors for Efficient Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells journal March 2016
A simple small molecule as an acceptor for fullerene-free organic solar cells with efficiency near 8% journal January 2016
Electron Acceptors Based on α-Substituted Perylene Diimide (PDI) for Organic Solar Cells journal February 2016
A Facile Planar Fused-Ring Electron Acceptor for As-Cast Polymer Solar Cells with 8.71% Efficiency journal February 2016
Fused Nonacyclic Electron Acceptors for Efficient Polymer Solar Cells journal January 2017
Single-Junction Binary-Blend Nonfullerene Polymer Solar Cells with 12.1% Efficiency journal March 2017
A Star-Shaped Perylene Diimide Electron Acceptor for High-Performance Organic Solar Cells journal March 2014
Pushing the Envelope of the Intrinsic Limitation of Organic Solar Cells journal May 2013
Charge Photogeneration in Organic Solar Cells journal November 2010
Charge Generation Pathways in Organic Solar Cells: Assessing the Contribution from the Electron Acceptor journal June 2016
A Multidimensional View of Charge Transfer Excitons at Organic Donor–Acceptor Interfaces journal March 2017
Influence of Anion Delocalization on Electron Transfer in a Covalent Porphyrin Donor–Perylenediimide Dimer Acceptor System journal January 2017
Impact of Electron Delocalization on the Nature of the Charge-Transfer States in Model Pentacene/C 60 Interfaces: A Density Functional Theory Study journal November 2014
Understanding Low Bandgap Polymer PTB7 and Optimizing Polymer Solar Cells Based on It journal March 2014
Mediating Solar Cell Performance by Controlling the Internal Dipole Change in Organic Photovoltaic Polymers journal July 2012
Examining the Effect of the Dipole Moment on Charge Separation in Donor–Acceptor Polymers for Organic Photovoltaic Applications journal December 2011
Synthesis and Search for Design Principles of New Electron Accepting Polymers for All-Polymer Solar Cells journal May 2014
What Controls the Rate of Ultrafast Charge Transfer and Charge Separation Efficiency in Organic Photovoltaic Blends journal September 2016
Structural Factors That Affect the Performance of Organic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells journal July 2013
Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells: Morphology and Performance Relationships journal May 2014
Mapping Polymer Donors toward High-Efficiency Fullerene Free Organic Solar Cells journal November 2016
Propeller-Shaped Acceptors for High-Performance Non-Fullerene Solar Cells: Importance of the Rigidity of Molecular Geometry journal January 2017
Generalized Gradient Approximation Made Simple journal October 1996
QUANTUM ESPRESSO: a modular and open-source software project for quantum simulations of materials journal September 2009
Atomistic simulation of structure and dynamics of columnar phases of hexabenzocoronene derivatives journal September 2006
Structure–charge mobility relation for hexabenzocoronene derivatives journal May 2008
Understanding Structure−Mobility Relations for Perylene Tetracarboxydiimide Derivatives journal July 2009
Relationship between supramolecular assembly and charge-carrier mobility in perylenediimide derivatives: The impact of side chains journal January 2011
Accurate Force Field Development for Modeling Conjugated Polymers journal October 2012
Conformational Order in Aggregates of Conjugated Polymers journal May 2015
GROMACS: High performance molecular simulations through multi-level parallelism from laptops to supercomputers journal September 2015
Best bang for your buck: GPU nodes for GROMACS biomolecular simulations journal August 2015
Charge Transport in Nanostructured Materials: Implementation and Verification of Constrained Density Functional Theory journal April 2017
Planarity and multiple components promote organic photovoltaic efficiency by improving electronic transport journal January 2016
Molecular electron-acceptors based on benzodithiophene for organic photovoltaics journal April 2015
A molecular nematic liquid crystalline material for high-performance organic photovoltaics journal January 2015
11.4% Efficiency non-fullerene polymer solar cells with trialkylsilyl substituted 2D-conjugated polymer as donor journal December 2016
25th Anniversary Article: Key Points for High-Mobility Organic Field-Effect Transistors journal September 2013

Cited By (6)

Perylene diimide based star-shaped small molecular acceptors for high efficiency organic solar cells journal January 2019
Functional transformation of four-bladed rylene propellers utilizing non-metal and d 8 metal core shifting strategy: significant impact on photovoltaic performance and electrocatalytic hydrogen evolution activity journal January 2020
Electronic and optical properties of π-bridged perylenediimide derivatives: the role of π-bridges journal January 2019
Electronic structure at coarse-grained resolutions from supervised machine learning journal March 2019
Meta-analysis: the molecular organization of non-fullerene acceptors journal January 2020
Halogen Bonding: A Halogen-Centered Noncovalent Interaction Yet to Be Understood journal March 2019


Figures / Tables (7)