Synthesis of the diketopyrrolopyrrole/terpyridine substituted carbazole derivative based polythiophenes for photovoltaic cells

Shih-Hao Wang; Teng-Wei Wang; Hsieh-Chih Tsai; Po-Chih Yang; Chih-Feng Huang; Rong-Ho Lee

doi:10.1039/c9ra09649c

Synthesis of the diketopyrrolopyrrole/terpyridine substituted carbazole derivative based polythiophenes for photovoltaic cells

RSC Adv. 2020 Mar 5;10(16):9525-9535. doi: 10.1039/c9ra09649c. eCollection 2020 Mar 2.

Authors

Shih-Hao Wang¹, Teng-Wei Wang¹, Hsieh-Chih Tsai^{2

3}, Po-Chih Yang⁴, Chih-Feng Huang¹, Rong-Ho Lee¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, National Chung Hsing University Taichung 402 Taiwan rhl@nchu.edu.tw +886-4-22854734 +886-4-22854308.
² Graduate Institute of Applied Sci. and Tech., National Taiwan University of Science and Technology Taipei 10607 Taiwan.
³ Advanced Membrane Materials Center, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology Taipei 10607 Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Yuan Ze University Taoyuan City 320 Taiwan.

Abstract

A series of conjugated polythiophenes (PTs) having low band gap energies (PDPP, PDPCz21, PDPCz11), with 2-ethylhexyl-functionalized 2,5-thienyl diketopyrrolopyrrole (TDPP) as the electron acceptor and terpyridine-substituted carbazole (TPCz) as the electron donor, have been synthesized and studied for their applicability in polymer-based photovoltaic cells (PVCs). The thermal stability and solvent solubility of PTs increased upon increasing the content of the TPCz derivative. PVCs were fabricated having the following architecture: indium tin oxide/poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):polystyrenesulfonate/PT:6,6-phenyl-C₇₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PC₇₁BM)/Ca/Ag. The compatibility between the PT and PC₇₁BM improved upon increasing the TPCz content. The photovoltaic properties of the PDPCz21-based PVCs were superior to those of their PDPP- and PDPCz11-based counterparts.