Bandgap Narrowing in Non‐Fullerene Acceptors: Single Atom Substitution Leads to High Optoelectronic Response Beyond 1000 nm

Lee, Jaewon; Ko, Seo‐Jin; Seifrid, Martin; Lee, Hansol; Luginbuhl, Benjamin R.; Karki, Akchheta; Ford, Michael; Rosenthal, Katie; Cho, Kilwon; Nguyen, Thuc‐Quyen; Bazan, Guillermo C.

doi:10.1002/aenm.201801212

Bandgap Narrowing in Non‐Fullerene Acceptors: Single Atom Substitution Leads to High Optoelectronic Response Beyond 1000 nm

Journal Article · Thu Jun 28 00:00:00 EDT 2018 · Advanced Energy Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/aenm.201801212· OSTI ID:1457792

Lee, Jaewon ^[1]; Ko, Seo‐Jin ^[1]; Seifrid, Martin ^[1]; Lee, Hansol ^[2]; Luginbuhl, Benjamin R. ^[1]; Karki, Akchheta ^[1]; Ford, Michael ^[1]; Rosenthal, Katie ^[1]; Cho, Kilwon ^[2]; Nguyen, Thuc‐Quyen ^[1]; ^[1]

Center for Polymers and Organic Solids Department of Chemistry and Department of Biochemistry University of California at Santa Barbara Santa Barbara CA 93106 USA
Center for Advanced Soft Electronics Department of Chemical Engineering Pohang University of Science and Technology Pohang 37673 Korea

Abstract

Two narrow bandgap non‐fullerene acceptors (NBG‐NFAs), namely, COTIC‐4F and SiOTIC‐4F, are designed and synthesized for the fabrication of efficient near‐infrared organic solar cells (OSCs). The chemical structures of the NBG‐NFAs contain a D′‐D‐D′ electron‐rich internal core based on a cyclopentadithiophene (or dithienosilole) (D) and alkoxythienyl (D′) core, end‐capped with the highly electron‐deficient unit 2‐(5,6‐difluoro‐3‐oxo‐2,3‐dihydro‐1H‐inden‐1‐ylidene)malononitrile (A), ultimately providing a A‐D′‐D‐D′‐A molecular configuration that enhances the intramolecular charge transfer characteristics of the excited states. One can thereby reduce the optical bandgap ( E _g ^opt ) to as low as ≈1.10 eV, one of the smallest values for NFAs reported to date. In bulk‐heterojunction (BHJ) OSCs, NBG‐NFA blends with the polymer donor PTB7‐Th yield power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of up to 9.0%, which is particularly high when compared against a range of NBG BHJ blends. Most significantly, it is found that, despite the small energy loss ( E _g ^opt − e V _OC ) of 0.52 eV, the PTB7‐Th/NBG‐NFA bulk heterojunction blends can yield short‐circuit current densities of up to 22.8 mA cm ⁻² , suggesting that the design and application of NBG‐NFA materials have substantial potential to further improve the PCE of OSCs.

View Accepted Manuscript (Publisher)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1457792

Journal Information:: Advanced Energy Materials, Journal Name: Advanced Energy Materials Journal Issue: 24 Vol. 8; ISSN 1614-6832

Publisher:: Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)Copyright Statement

Country of Publication:: Germany

Language:: English

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