Issue 46, 2018

Non-fullerene acceptor engineering with three-dimensional thiophene/selenophene-annulated perylene diimides for high performance polymer solar cells

Abstract

We report two new propeller-shaped perylene diimide (PDI) acceptors based on tetraphenylethylene (TPE) as the core and flanked with S/Se-fused PDIs, named as TPE-PDI4-S and TPE-PDI4-Se. Compared to the sulfur-annulated counterpart, TPE-PDI4-Se exhibits a blue-shifted absorption spectrum, stronger absorption in the region of 400–600 nm, higher LUMO energy level and twisted molecular geometry. The TPE-PDI4-Se based device with PBDB-T1 as the donor achieved a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.63% along with a high VOC of 1.08 V, a JSC of 10.28 mA cm−2 and a high fill factor of 68.8%, a 11.4% boost in PCE with respect to the TPE-PDI4-S based control device (6.85%). The high photovoltaic performance of the TPE-PDI4-Se based device can be attributed to its relatively high-lying LUMO level, complementary absorption spectra with the donor material, relatively favorable morphology and balanced carrier transport. To the best of our knowledge, a PCE of 7.63% is among the highest values for TPE core-based non-fullerene organic solar cells. Overall, our work provides a simple and effective molecule-designing method to promote the PCE of non-fullerene OSCs.

Graphical abstract: Non-fullerene acceptor engineering with three-dimensional thiophene/selenophene-annulated perylene diimides for high performance polymer solar cells

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
29 Sep 2018
Accepted
25 Oct 2018
First published
29 Oct 2018

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2018,6, 12601-12607

Non-fullerene acceptor engineering with three-dimensional thiophene/selenophene-annulated perylene diimides for high performance polymer solar cells

G. Li, S. Wang, T. Liu, P. Hao, Z. Liu, F. Li, L. Yang, Y. Zhang, D. Li, S. Yang, J. Zhao, J. Li, H. Yan and B. Tang, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2018, 6, 12601 DOI: 10.1039/C8TC04926B

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