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Unsymmetric Side Chains of Indacenodithiophene Copolymers Lead to Improved Packing and Device Performance

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Abstract

Two conjugated polymers (PuIDTBD and PuIDTQ) with unsymmetric side chains have been prepared for polymer solar cells using two other polymers (PIDTBD and PIDTQ) with symmetric side chains as control compounds. The combination of methyl and 4-hexylphenyl side chains on the same bridged carbon can ensure good solubility, decrease π-π stacking distances, and bring proper miscibility with PC71BM simultaneously. Therefore, the corresponding polymer solar cells (PSCs) based on donor polymers with unsymmetric side chains exhibited enhanced short-circuit current density (JSC) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) compared with those of control polymers. The PIDTBD and PIDTQ based devices possessed low PCE of 2.13% and 1.48%, while PCEs of devices based on PuIDTBD and PuIDTQ were improved to 3.93% and 4.12%, respectively. The results demonstrate that unsymmetric side chain engineering of conjugated polymers is an effective approach to achieve high performance PSCs.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51403135) and Sichuan Science and Technology Program (No. 2019YJ0123).

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Polymer Science & Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China

    Ying Yang, Jian Cao, Hua-Chun Wang, Ji-Kang Wang & Yun-Xiang Xu

  2. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Tong Shan & Hong-Liang Zhong

Authors
  1. Ying Yang
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  2. Tong Shan
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  3. Jian Cao
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  4. Hua-Chun Wang
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Correspondence to Hong-Liang Zhong or Yun-Xiang Xu.

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Yang, Y., Shan, T., Cao, J. et al. Unsymmetric Side Chains of Indacenodithiophene Copolymers Lead to Improved Packing and Device Performance. Chin J Polym Sci 38, 342–348 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10118-020-2342-9

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