Two star-shaped small molecule donors based on benzodithiophene unit for organic solar cells

Star-shaped small molecules have attracted great attention for organic solar cells(OSCs)because they have three-dimensional charge-transport characteristics,strong light absorption capacities and easily tunable energy levels.Herein,three-and four-armed star-shaped small molecule donors,namely BDT-3 Th and BDT-4 Th,respectively,have been successfully designed and synthesized,which used benzodithiophene(BDT)as the central unit.The two star-shaped intermediates(2 a and 2 b)could be simultaneously obtained by one-step of Suzuki coupling,and 1,2-dimethoxyethane played a key role in the Suzuki coupling.Both of them have excellent thermal stability,good solubility and broad absorption.Four-armed BDT-4 Th shows a slightly higher extinction coefficient,a deeper HOMO energy level and an obviously better phase separation morphology when blended with Y6 than three-armed BDT-3 Th.As a result,increased power conversion efficiency(PCE)of 5.83%is obtained in the BDT-4 Th:Y6-based OSC devices,which is obviously higher than that of the BDT-3 Th:Y6-based devices(PCE=3.78%).To the best of our knowledge,this is the highest PCE among the BDT-based star-shaped donors-based OSCs.This result provides an effective strategy to obtain star-shaped small molecule donor materials for high efficient organic solar cells.

Ethynylene-Linked Oligomers Based on Benzodithiophene:Synthesis and Photoelectric Properties

Two conjugated ethynyl-linked oligomers,oligo(benzodithiophene-ethynylene-benzothiadiazole)(O1)and oligo(benzodithiophene-ethynylene-carbazole)(O2),were synthesized by Sonogashira coupling reaction.Their de-grees of polymerization were 7 and 10,respectively.Their photophysical and electrochemical properties were in-vestigated.O1 exhibitd two strong absorption bands at 404 nm and 483 nm,and O2 at 401 nm and 429 nm.The re-sults of UV-Vis,cyclic voltammetry(CV)and theoretical calculations showed that O1 has a narrower band gap than O2.The conductivities of O1 and O2 were 1.05×10^(−15) and 6.98×10^(−16) S/cm,respectively,and would increase to 1.23×10^(−10) and 1.05×10^(−10) S/cm after doping with iodine.

Low band-gap benzodithiophene-thienothiophenecopolymers: the effect of dual two-dimensional substitutions on optoelectronic properties

Two new conjugated copolymers, PBDT-T6-TTF and PBDT-T12-TTF, were derived from a novel 4-fluorobenzoyl thienothi- ophene （TTF）. In addition, two types of benzodithiophene （BDT） units with 2,3-dihexylthienyl （T6） and 2,3-didodecylthienyl （T12） substituents, respectively, were successfully synthesized. The effect of the dual two-dimensional （2D） substitutions of the building blocks upon the optoelectronic properties of the polymers was investigated. Generally, the two polymers exhibited good solubility and broad absorption, showing similar optical band gaps of ~1.53 eV. However, PBDT-T6-TTF with its shorter alkyl chain length possessed a larger extinction coefficient in thin solid film. The highest occupied molecular orbital （HOMO） level of PBDT-T6-TTF was located at -5.38 eV while that of PBDT-T12-TTF was at -5.51 eV. In space charge-limited- current （SCLC） measurement, PBDT-T6-TTF and PBDT-T12-TTF displayed respective hole mobilities of 3.0~10-~ and 1.6x10 5 cm2 V-1 s-l. In polymer solar cells, PBDT-T6-TTF and PBDT-T12-TTF showed respective power conversion efficiencies （PCEs） of 2.86% and 1.67%. When 1,8-diiodooctane （DIO） was used as the solvent additive, the PCE of PBDT-T6-TTF was remarkably elevated to 4.85%, but the use of DIO for the PBDT-T12-TTF-blend film resulted in a lower PCE of 0.91%. Atomic force microscopy （AFM） indicated that the superior efficiency of PBDT-T6-TTF with 3% DIO （v/v） should be related to the better continuous phase separation of the blend film. Nevertheless, the morphology of the PBDT-T12-TTF deteriorated when the 3% DIO （v/v） was added. Our results suggest that the alkyl-chain length on the 2D BDT units play an important role in determining the optoelectronic properties of dual 2D BDT-TT-based polymers.

A simple structure copolymer donor based on carboxylated benzodithiophene for polymer solar cells

The design and development of low-cost and efficient photovoltaic materials remain a major challenge for the research and application of polymer solar cells(PSCs).Therefore,developing efficient photovoltaic polymers with simple structure and easy preparation has become an important research topic.Here we report a facilely synthesized electron-donating polymer X1 with a simple chemical structure,which is composed of carboxylated benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene(BDT)and thiophene unit.The carboxylate substituents on the BDT unit endowed the polymer with appropriate solubility,low-lying highest occupied molecular orbital(HOMO)energy level,and superior absorption.The PSCs based on X1 as the donor showed a high power conversion efficiency of 16.6%,with a remarkable short-circuit current density of 27.07 m A cm^(-2).These results demonstrated that X1 is a highly promising candidate for low-cost and efficient PSCs.Furthermore,this study revealed the potential of carboxylated BDT as an effective building block in the research and development of high-performance photovoltaic materials.