High-Performance Polymer Solar Cells Achieved by Introducing Side-Chain Heteroatom on Small-Molecule Electron Acceptor

Abstract

Side chains of photovoltaic materials play an important role in determining charge transport property, film morphology, and the corresponding device performance. In this work, two new acceptor materials, ATT-6 and ATT-7 with different side chains, m-hexylphenyl and m-hexyloxyphenyl on the indacenodithiophene, are designed and synthesized for applications in non-fullerene polymer solar cells. ATT-7 shows a higher absorption coefficient, increased crystallinity, and improved electron mobility in comparison with ATT-6. Using wide-bandgap polymer poly[(2,6-(4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)thiophen-2-yl)-benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene))-alt-(5,5-(1',3'-di-2-thienyl-5',7'-bis(2-ethylhexyl)benzo[1',2'-c:4',5'-c]dithiophene-4,8-dione)] (PBDB-T) as donor, optimized devices based on PBDB-T:ATT-7 and PBDB-T:ATT-6 delivers power conversion efficiencies of 10.30% and 8.39%, respectively. The higher performance of ATT-7-based device can be attributed to efficient exciton dissociation, reduced bimolecular recombination, and enhanced and balanced charge carrier mobilities. These results indicate that side-chain modification is an easy but efficient way in the design of high-performance non-fullerene acceptors.