An A-D-A'-D-A type small molecule acceptor with a broad absorption spectrum for organic solar cells

Chem Commun (Camb). 2018 Jan 2;54(3):303-306. doi: 10.1039/c7cc08497h.

Abstract

Organic molecules with wide absorption spectra exhibit great sunlight harvesting capability and are critically important for solar cell applications. In this manuscript, we develop an A-D-A'-D-A type small molecule acceptor (IID-IC) using isoindigo (IID) as the electron-deficient core unit (A'), thiophene as the electron-rich bridging units (D) and 2-(3-oxo-2,3-dihydroinden-1-ylidene)malononitrile (IC) as the electron-deficient endcapping groups (A). IID-IC shows a wide absorption spectrum with the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 190 nm, which is almost twice that of a typical A-D-A type molecule acceptor. The wide absorption spectrum of IID-IC is possibly due to the partially suppressed intramolecular charge transfer effect with the additional electron-deficient core unit. An organic solar cell (OSC) device based on IID-IC exhibits the power conversion efficiency of 2.82% with broad photoresponse from 320 nm to 780 nm.