Quinoxaline-Based Wide Band Gap Polymers for Efficient Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells with Large Open-Circuit Voltages

Jie Yang, Mohammad Afsar Uddin, Yumin Tang, Yulun Wang, Yang Wang, Huimin Su, Rutian Gao, Zhi Kuan Chen, Junfeng Dai, Han Young Woo, Xugang Guo

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    38 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    We present here a series of wide-band-gap (Eg: >1.8 eV) polymer donors by incorporating thiophene-flanked phenylene as an electron-donating unit and quinoxaline as an electron-Accepting co-unit to attain large open-circuit voltages (Vocs) and short-circuit currents (Jscs) in nonfullerene organic solar cells (OSCs). Fluorination was utilized to fine-Tailor the energetics of polymer frontier molecular orbitals (FMOs) by replacing a variable number of H atoms on the phenylene moiety with F. It was found that fluorination can effectively modulate the polymer backbone planarity through intramolecular noncovalent S···F and/or H···F interactions. Polymers (P2-P4) show an improved molecular packing with a favorable face-on orientation compared to their nonfluorinated analogue (P1), which is critical to charge carrier transport and collection. When mixed with IDIC, a nonfullerene acceptor, P3 with two F atoms, achieves a remarkable Voc of 1.00 V and a large Jsc of 15.99 mA/cm2, simultaneously, yielding a power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.7%. Notably, the 1.00 V Voc is among the largest values in the IDIC-based OSCs, leading to a small energy loss (Eloss: 0.62 eV) while maintaining a large PCE. The P3:IDIC blend shows an efficient exciton dissociation through hole transfer even under a small energy offset of 0.16 eV. Further fluorination leads to the polymer P4 with increased chain-Twisting and mismatched FMO levels with IDIC, showing the lowest PCE of 2.93%. The results demonstrate that quinoxaline-based copolymers are promising donors for efficient OSCs and the fluorination needs to be fine-Adjusted to optimize the interchain packing and physicochemical properties of polymers. Additionally, the structure-property correlations from this work provide useful insights for developing wide-band-gap polymers with low-lying highest occupied molecular orbitals to minimize Eloss and maximize Voc in nonfullerene OSCs for efficient power conversion.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)23235-23246
    Number of pages12
    JournalACS Applied Materials and Interfaces
    Volume10
    Issue number27
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2018 Jul 11

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    Copyright © 2018 American Chemical Society.

    Keywords

    • energy losses
    • fluorination
    • nonfullerene organic solar cells
    • open-circuit voltages
    • polymer semiconductors

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General Materials Science

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