Alkyl Chain End Group Engineering of Small Molecule Acceptors for Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells

doi:10.1021/acsaem.8b00851

Title: Alkyl Chain End Group Engineering of Small Molecule Acceptors for Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells

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Abstract

Alkyl chain engineering is widely used to prepare high-performance donor materials. However, relatively few studies have been focused on the alkyl chain optimization of acceptor materials. Herein, a series of new A-D-A (acceptor-donor-acceptor) type small molecule acceptors (ITBTR-C2, ITBTR-C4, ITBTR-C6, and ITBTR-C8) with indacenodithieno[3,2-b]thiophene (IDTT) as the core, benzothiadiazole (BT) as the π bridge, and ethyl-, butyl-, hexyl-, and octyl-substituted 2-(1,1-dicyanomethylene) rhodanine as the end groups, respectively, are successfully synthesized to systematically investigate the alkyl substituent effects on the physical, chemical, and electronic properties of A-D-A type small molecule acceptors. All molecules exhibit a strong and broad absorption from 600 to 800 nm as well as similar HOMO and LUMO energy levels. ITBTR-C6 with hexyl substitution showed the highest electron mobility and better phase separation morphology after blending with a donor polymer (PBDB-T). Therefore, inverted bulk heterojunction organic solar cells based on ITBTR-C6:PBDB-T blends exhibit the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.26% with an open-circuit voltage ( V _OC) of 0.89 V, a high short-circuit current density ( J _SC) of 15.80 mA/cm2, and a fill factor (FF) of 58.21%, while the PCEs of ITBTR-C2-, ITBTR-C4-, and ITBTR-C8-based devices are 7.04%, 7.43%, and 7.93%, respectively. After solvent vapor andmore »« less

Authors:

Qu, Jianfei ^[1]; Mu, Zhao ^[1]; Lai, Hanjian ^[1]; Chen, Hui ^[1]; Liu, Tao ^[1]; Zhang, Shuai ^[1];

^[2];

^[1]

Southern Univ. of Science and Technology, Shenzhen (People’s Republic of China)
Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Lemont, IL (United States); The Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)

Publication Date:: 2018-08-31

Research Org.:: Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division

OSTI Identifier:: 1483636

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: ACS Applied Energy Materials

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 1; Journal Issue: 9; Journal ID: ISSN 2574-0962

Publisher:: American Chemical Society (ACS)

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY; alkyl chains; end groups; molecular packing; nonfullerene acceptors; organic solar cells

Citation Formats


                    Qu, Jianfei, Mu, Zhao, Lai, Hanjian, Chen, Hui, Liu, Tao, Zhang, Shuai, Chen, Wei, and He, Feng. Alkyl Chain End Group Engineering of Small Molecule Acceptors for Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells.  United States: N. p., 2018. 
        Web.  doi:10.1021/acsaem.8b00851.

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                    Qu, Jianfei, Mu, Zhao, Lai, Hanjian, Chen, Hui, Liu, Tao, Zhang, Shuai, Chen, Wei, & He, Feng. Alkyl Chain End Group Engineering of Small Molecule Acceptors for Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells.  United States.  doi:10.1021/acsaem.8b00851.

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                    Qu, Jianfei, Mu, Zhao, Lai, Hanjian, Chen, Hui, Liu, Tao, Zhang, Shuai, Chen, Wei, and He, Feng. Fri .  
        "Alkyl Chain End Group Engineering of Small Molecule Acceptors for Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells".  United States.  doi:10.1021/acsaem.8b00851.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1483636.

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@article{osti_1483636,

  title        = {Alkyl Chain End Group Engineering of Small Molecule Acceptors for Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells},

  author       = {Qu, Jianfei and Mu, Zhao and Lai, Hanjian and Chen, Hui and Liu, Tao and Zhang, Shuai and Chen, Wei and He, Feng},

  abstractNote = {Alkyl chain engineering is widely used to prepare high-performance donor materials. However, relatively few studies have been focused on the alkyl chain optimization of acceptor materials. Herein, a series of new A-D-A (acceptor-donor-acceptor) type small molecule acceptors (ITBTR-C2, ITBTR-C4, ITBTR-C6, and ITBTR-C8) with indacenodithieno[3,2-b]thiophene (IDTT) as the core, benzothiadiazole (BT) as the π bridge, and ethyl-, butyl-, hexyl-, and octyl-substituted 2-(1,1-dicyanomethylene) rhodanine as the end groups, respectively, are successfully synthesized to systematically investigate the alkyl substituent effects on the physical, chemical, and electronic properties of A-D-A type small molecule acceptors. All molecules exhibit a strong and broad absorption from 600 to 800 nm as well as similar HOMO and LUMO energy levels. ITBTR-C6 with hexyl substitution showed the highest electron mobility and better phase separation morphology after blending with a donor polymer (PBDB-T). Therefore, inverted bulk heterojunction organic solar cells based on ITBTR-C6:PBDB-T blends exhibit the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.26% with an open-circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.89 V, a high short-circuit current density (JSC) of 15.80 mA/cm2, and a fill factor (FF) of 58.21%, while the PCEs of ITBTR-C2-, ITBTR-C4-, and ITBTR-C8-based devices are 7.04%, 7.43%, and 7.93%, respectively. After solvent vapor and thermal annealing, both the JSC and FF values of the ITBTR-C6-based device further increased, leading to a PCE of 9.29%. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the alkyl chain substitution of A-D-A type small molecule acceptors is critical, and an appropriate adjustment of the alkyl chains can effectively enhance device performance.},

  doi          = {10.1021/acsaem.8b00851},

  journal      = {ACS Applied Energy Materials},

  number       = 9,

  volume       = 1,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {2018},

  month        = {8}

}

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