Regulating the Packing of Non-Fullerene Acceptors via Multiple Noncovalent Interactions for Enhancing the Performance of Organic Solar Cells

Shiyu Feng; Miao Li; Ningning Tang; Xiaodong Wang; Hao Huang; Guangliu Ran; Yahui Liu; Zengqi Xie; Wenkai Zhang; Zhishan Bo

doi:10.1021/acsami.9b18076

Regulating the Packing of Non-Fullerene Acceptors via Multiple Noncovalent Interactions for Enhancing the Performance of Organic Solar Cells

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2020 Jan 29;12(4):4638-4648. doi: 10.1021/acsami.9b18076. Epub 2020 Jan 15.

Authors

Shiyu Feng^{1

2}, Miao Li¹, Ningning Tang³, Xiaodong Wang¹, Hao Huang¹, Guangliu Ran¹, Yahui Liu¹, Zengqi Xie³, Wenkai Zhang¹, Zhishan Bo¹

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Energy Conversion and Storage Materials, College of Chemistry, Center for Advanced Quantum Studies, Department of Physics and Applied Optics, Beijing Area Major Laboratory , Beijing Normal University , Beijing 100875 , P. R. China.
² State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter , Chinese Academy of Sciences , 155 Yangqiao West Road , Fuzhou 350002 , P. R. China.
³ Institute of Polymer Optoelectronic Materials and Devices, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices , South China University of Technology , Guangzhou 510640 , P. R. China.

PMID: 31903738
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.9b18076

Abstract

Three noncovalently fused-ring electron acceptors (FOC6-IC, FOC6-FIC, and FOC2C6-2FIC) are synthesized. Single crystals of FOC6-IC and FOC2C6-2FIC are prepared, and structure analyses reveal that the molecular backbone can be planarized via the formation of the intramolecular noncovalent interactions. These acceptor molecules can be packed closely in the solid state via π-π stacking and static interactions between the central phenylene unit and the terminal group with a distance of 3.3-3.4 Å. Besides, multiple intermolecular noncovalent interactions can be observed in the single crystal structure of the fluorinated acceptor FOC2C6-2FIC, which help increase the crystallinity of acceptors and the charge mobility of the blends. Photovoltaic devices based on FOC2C6-2FIC give a power conversion efficiency of 12.36%, higher than 12.08% for FOC6-FIC and 10.80% for FOC6-IC.

Keywords: non-covalent interactions; non-fullerene acceptors; organic solar cells; single crystals; transient absorption.