Single crystalline indene-C60 bisadduct: isolation and application in polymer solar cells

Abstract

Six fractions of indene-C₆₀ bisadducts (IC₆₀BAs) with two indene pendants located at different positions of the C₆₀ cage were isolated by using the HPLC technique, in which one enantiomeric mixture was purified and the structure was confirmed by single crystal XRD analysis. It was revealed that the isolated IC₆₀BA isomers possess an elevated LUMO energy level and afford increased electron mobility, but the solar cells assembled by the isolated IC₆₀BA isomers with P3HT did not show high performance due to a serious phase separation between them. The results suggest that for high performance polymer solar cells we should consider not only the energy level matching between the donor and acceptor materials, but also the structural matching between them.