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Side chain engineering investigation of non-fullerene acceptors for photovoltaic device with efficiency over 15%

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Abstract

Side chain engineering plays a substantial role for high-performance organic solar cells (OSCs). Herein, a series of non-fullerene acceptor (NFA) molecules with A-D-A structures, TTCn-4F, with gradient substituent lengths of terminal side chains (T-SCs) on the molecular backbones have been designed and synthesized. The effects of T-SCs length, ranging from hydrogen atom to n-dodecyl, their optoelectronic properties, thin film molecular packing, blend film morphology, and overall photovoltaic performance have been systematically studied. The results show that among this series of molecules, TTC8-4F with n-octyl substituent, showed the best photovoltaic performance when applied with PM6 as the donor due to its favorable morphology, balanced charge mobility, effective exciton dissociation and less charge recombination. Based on this, its ternary device with F-Br as the secondary acceptor achieved a high PCE of 15.34% with the simultaneously enhanced Voc of 0.938 V, Jsc of 22.66 mA cm−2, and FF of 72.15%. These results indicate that the engineering of T-SCs is an effective strategy for designing high-performance NFAs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2019YFA0705900), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51773095, 21935007, 51873089), the Natural Science Foundation of Tianjin City (17JCJQJC44500) and the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities of China (111 Project) (B12015). The authors also thank the staff from Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility (BSRF) for the support of 2D-GIWAXS measurements.

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  1. These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Centre of Nanoscale Science and Technology and Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials, Institute of Polymer Chemistry, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Xin Zhang, Yunqian Ding, Huanhuan Gao, Xin Ke, Hongtao Zhang, Chenxi Li, Xiangjian Wan & Yongsheng Chen

  2. School of Materials Science and Engineering, National Institute for Advanced Materials, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Yunqian Ding

  3. State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Huanran Feng & Yongsheng Chen

  4. Renewable Energy Conversion and Storage Center (RECAST), Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China

    Xiangjian Wan & Yongsheng Chen

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  1. Xin Zhang
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Correspondence to Xiangjian Wan.

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Zhang, X., Ding, Y., Feng, H. et al. Side chain engineering investigation of non-fullerene acceptors for photovoltaic device with efficiency over 15%. Sci. China Chem. 63, 1799–1806 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-020-9820-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-020-9820-2

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