Effect of Alkylsilyl Side‐Chain Structure on Photovoltaic Properties of Conjugated Polymer Donors

Abstract

Side‐chain engineering is an important strategy for optimizing photovoltaic properties of organic photovoltaic materials. In this work, the effect of alkylsilyl side‐chain structure on the photovoltaic properties of medium bandgap conjugated polymer donors is studied by synthesizing four new polymers J70, J72, J73, and J74 on the basis of highly efficient polymer donor J71 by changing alkyl substituents of the alkylsilyl side chains of the polymers. And the photovoltaic properties of the five polymers are studied by fabricating polymer solar cells (PSCs) with the polymers as donor and an n‐type organic semiconductor (n‐OS) m‐ITIC as acceptor. It is found that the shorter and linear alkylsilyl side chain could afford ordered molecular packing, stronger absorption coefficient, higher charge carrier mobility, thus results in higher Jsc and fill factor values in the corresponding PSCs. While the polymers with longer or branched alkyl substituents in the trialkylsilyl group show lower‐lying highest occupied molecular orbital energy levels which leads to higher Voc of the PSCs. The PSCs based on J70:m‐ITIC and J71:m‐ITIC achieve power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 11.62 and 12.05%, respectively, which are among the top values of the PSCs reported in the literatures so far.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Dec 04, 2017
Source ID
10.1002/aenm.201702324

Entities

People

  • Beibei Qiu
  • Chenkai Sun
  • Haijun Bin
  • Harald Ade
  • Jia Yao
  • Lian Zhong
  • Liang Gao
  • Lingwei Xue
  • Long Ye
  • Steven H. Huang
  • Xiaojun Li
  • Yankang Yang
  • Yongfang Li
  • Zhengxing Peng
  • Zhi‐guo Zhang

Organizations

  • Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China
  • National Natural Science Foundation of China
  • North Carolina State University
  • Office of Naval Research
  • Royal Institute of Chemistry
  • Soochow University
  • United States Department of Energy
  • University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Chemistry
  • Materials science

Readers

  • Organic Chemistry
  • Solar Photovoltaics and Thermoelectric Devices.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Space