Volume 16, Issue 22 1907681
Full Paper

Electron-Deficient and Quinoid Central Unit Engineering for Unfused Ring-Based A1–D–A2–D–A1-Type Acceptor Enables High Performance Nonfullerene Polymer Solar Cells with High Voc and PCE Simultaneously

Chao Zhang

Chao Zhang

Key Laboratory of Cluster Science of Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 South Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, 100081 China

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Xin Song

Xin Song

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Physical Sciences and Engineering Division (PSE), KAUST Solar Center, Thuwal, 23955-6900 Saudi Arabia

Center of Micro-Nano Engineering, School of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, 214122 China

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Kai-Kai Liu

Kai-Kai Liu

Key Laboratory of Cluster Science of Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 South Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, 100081 China

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Ming Zhang

Ming Zhang

Department of Physics and Astronomy and Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, 200240 China

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Jianfei Qu

Jianfei Qu

Department of Chemistry, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055 China

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Can Yang

Can Yang

Key Laboratory of Cluster Science of Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 South Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, 100081 China

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Gui-Zhou Yuan

Gui-Zhou Yuan

Key Laboratory of Cluster Science of Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 South Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, 100081 China

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Asif Mahmood

Asif Mahmood

Key Laboratory of Cluster Science of Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 South Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, 100081 China

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Feng Liu

Corresponding Author

Feng Liu

Department of Physics and Astronomy and Collaborative Innovation Center of IFSA (CICIFSA), Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, 200240 China

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

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Feng He

Feng He

Department of Chemistry, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055 China

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Derya Baran

Corresponding Author

Derya Baran

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Physical Sciences and Engineering Division (PSE), KAUST Solar Center, Thuwal, 23955-6900 Saudi Arabia

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

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Jin-Liang Wang

Corresponding Author

Jin-Liang Wang

Key Laboratory of Cluster Science of Ministry of Education, Beijing Key Laboratory of Photoelectronic/Electrophotonic Conversion Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 South Zhongguancun Street, Beijing, 100081 China

E-mail: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

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First published: 06 May 2020
Citations: 35

Abstract

Here, a pair of A1–D–A2–D–A1 unfused ring core-based nonfullerene small molecule acceptors (NF-SMAs), BO2FIDT-4Cl and BT2FIDT-4Cl is synthesized, which possess the same terminals (A1) and indacenodithiophene unit (D), coupling with different fluorinated electron-deficient central unit (difluorobenzoxadiazole or difluorobenzothiadiazole) (A2). BT2FIDT-4Cl exhibits a slightly smaller optical bandgap of 1.56 eV, upshifted highest occupied molecular orbital energy levels, much higher electron mobility, and slightly enhanced molecular packing order in neat thin films than that of BO2FIDT-4Cl. The polymer solar cells (PSCs) based on BT2FIDT-4Cl:PM7 yield the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.5% with a Voc of 0.97 V, which is higher than that of BO2FIDT-4Cl-based devices (PCE of 10.4%). The results demonstrate that the subtle modification of A2 unit would result in lower trap-assisted recombination, more favorable morphology features, and more balanced electron and hole mobility in the PM7:BT2FIDT-4Cl blend films. It is worth mentioning that the PCE of 12.5% is the highest value in nonfused ring NF-SMA-based binary PSCs with high Voc over 0.90 V. These results suggest that appropriate modulation of the quinoid electron-deficient central unit is an effective approach to construct highly efficient unfused ring NF-SMAs to boost PCE and Voc simultaneously.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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