Balancing Flexible Side Chains on 2D Conjugated Acceptors Enables High-Performance Organic Solar Cell

Xingqi Bi; Shitong Li; Tengfei He; Hongbin Chen; Yu Li; Xinyuan Jia; Xiangjian Cao; Yaxiao Guo; Yang Yang; Wei Ma; Zhaoyang Yao; Bin Kan; Chenxi Li; Xiangjian Wan; Yongsheng Chen

doi:10.1002/smll.202311561

Balancing Flexible Side Chains on 2D Conjugated Acceptors Enables High-Performance Organic Solar Cell

Small. 2024 Mar 28:e2311561. doi: 10.1002/smll.202311561. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Xingqi Bi¹, Shitong Li¹, Tengfei He¹, Hongbin Chen¹, Yu Li¹, Xinyuan Jia¹, Xiangjian Cao¹, Yaxiao Guo², Yang Yang³, Wei Ma⁴, Zhaoyang Yao¹, Bin Kan¹, Chenxi Li¹, Xiangjian Wan¹, Yongsheng Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, The Centre of Nanoscale Science and Technology, Institute of Polymer Chemistry, Tianjin Key Laboratory of functional polymer materials, College of Chemistry, Renewable Energy Conversion and Storage Center (RECAST), Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Separation Membranes and Membrane Processes, School of Chemistry, Tiangong University, Tianjin, 300387, China.
³ The Institute of Seawater Desalination and Multipurpose Utilization, Ministry of Natural Resources (Tianjin), Tianjin, 300192, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory for Mechanical Behavior of Materials, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049, China.

PMID: 38546001
DOI: 10.1002/smll.202311561

Abstract

Balancing the rigid backbones and flexible side chains of light-harvesting materials is crucially important to reach optimized intermolecular packing, micromorphology, and thus photovoltaic performance of organic solar cells (OSCs). Herein, based on a distinctive CH-series acceptor platform with 2D conjugation extended backbones, a series of nonfullerene acceptors (CH-6F-Cn) are synthesized by delicately tuning the lengths of flexible side chains from n-octyl to n-amyl. A systemic investigation has revealed that the variation of the side chain's length can not only modulate intermolecular packing modes and crystallinity but also dramatically improve the micromorphology of the active layer and eventual photovoltaic parameters of OSCs. Consequently, the highest PCE of 18.73% can be achieved by OSCs employing D18:PM6:CH-6F-C8 as light-harvesting materials.

Keywords: 2D conjugated acceptors; flexible side chains tuning; intermolecular packing; morphology control; organic solar cells.

Abstract

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