Central Unit Fluorination of Non-Fullerene Acceptors Enables Highly Efficient Organic Solar Cells with Over 18 % Efficiency

Hongbin Chen; Huazhe Liang; Ziqi Guo; Yu Zhu; Zhe Zhang; Zhixiang Li; Xiangjian Cao; Haohui Wang; Wanying Feng; Yalu Zou; Lingxian Meng; Xiaoyun Xu; Bin Kan; Chenxi Li; Zhaoyang Yao; Xiangjian Wan; Zaifei Ma; Yongsheng Chen

doi:10.1002/anie.202209580

Central Unit Fluorination of Non-Fullerene Acceptors Enables Highly Efficient Organic Solar Cells with Over 18 % Efficiency

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2022 Oct 10;61(41):e202209580. doi: 10.1002/anie.202209580. Epub 2022 Aug 31.

Authors

Hongbin Chen¹, Huazhe Liang¹, Ziqi Guo¹, Yu Zhu¹, Zhe Zhang¹, Zhixiang Li¹, Xiangjian Cao¹, Haohui Wang¹, Wanying Feng¹, Yalu Zou¹, Lingxian Meng¹, Xiaoyun Xu², Bin Kan¹, Chenxi Li¹, Zhaoyang Yao¹, Xiangjian Wan¹, Zaifei Ma², Yongsheng Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory and Institute of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, The Centre of Nanoscale Science and Technology and Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials, Renewable Energy Conversion and Storage Center (RECAST), College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China.
² State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Center for Advanced Low-dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China.

PMID: 35894110
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202209580

Abstract

Halogenation of terminal of acceptors has been shown to give dramatic improvements in power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic solar cells (OSCs). Similar significant results could be expected from the halogenation of the central units of state-of-the-art Y-series acceptors. Herein, a pair of acceptors, termed CH6 and CH4, featuring a conjugation-extended phenazine central unit with and without fluorination, have been synthesized. The fluorinated CH6 has enhanced molecular interactions and crystallinity, superior fibrillar network morphology and improved charge generation and transport in blend films, thus affording a higher PCE of 18.33 % for CH6-based binary OSCs compared to 16.49 % for the non-fluorinated CH4. The new central site offers further opportunities for structural optimization of Y-series molecules to afford better-performed OSCs and reveals the effectiveness of fluorination on central units.

Keywords: Central Unit; Fluorination; Non-Fullerene Acceptor; Solar Cells; Y-series.

Abstract

Grants and funding