Synthesis, thin-film morphology, and comparative study of bulk and bilayer heterojunction organic photovoltaic devices using soluble diketopyrrolopyrrole molecules

Abstract

Diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based organic semiconductors EH-DPP-TFP and EH-DPP-TFPV with branched ethyl-hexyl solubilizing alkyl chains and end capped with trifluoromethyl phenyl groups were designed and synthesized via Suzuki coupling. These compounds show intense absorptions up to 700 nm, and thin film-forming characteristics that sensitively depend on the solvent and coating conditions. Both materials have been used as electron donors in bulk heterojunction and bilayer organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices with fullerenes as acceptors and their performance has been studied in detail. The best power conversion efficiency of 3.3% under AM1.5G illumination (100 mW cm⁻²) was achieved for bilayer solar cells when EH-DPP-TFPV was used with C₆₀, after a thermal annealing step to induce dye aggregation and interdiffusion of C₆₀ with the donor material. To date, this is one of the highest efficiencies reported for simple bilayer OPV devices.