Rational Design of Near-Infrared Polymer Acceptors Using Steric Hindrance Strategy for High-Performance Organic Solar Cells

Xiaoming Li, Lingyu Chen, Lingxian Meng, Chen Zhang, Xiaopeng Duan, Yuheng Man, Min Hun Jee, Lili Han, Yiyang Pan, Donghui Wei, Xiangjian Wan, Han Young Woo, Yongsheng Chen, Yanming Sun

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    8 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    The unprecedented development of all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) is hindered by their low short-circuit current density (Jsc), mainly due to the absence of near-infrared (NIR) polymer acceptor materials. To tackle this challenge, a molecular design principle is proposed, which involves the regulation of steric hindrance on the fused-ring backbone to obtain NIR polymer acceptors. Accordingly, three acceptors named PTz-Ph, PTz-Me, and PTz-H are synthesized by substituting the Phenyl, Methyl, and Hydrogen in the beta position of the thiophene unit based on fused-ring molecules. Different from the necessity of steric hindrance of small molecule acceptors in achieving an outstanding performance, polymer acceptor PTz-H without steric hindrance-substitution achieves a record-high efficiency for the benzotriazole-based all-PSCs. Then, introducing PTz-H into the binary PBDB-T:PTz-BO system, the ternary all-PSC exhibits a splendid efficiency of 18.16%, which has surpassed the efficiencies of most benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole-based counterparts. In addition, an organic tandem solar cell is successfully fabricated, which exhibits a high efficiency of 17.49%. This work provides an effective and readily accessible design strategy for designing high-performance NIR polymer acceptors, showing the great potential for future organic photovoltaic applications.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article number2316090
    JournalAdvanced Functional Materials
    Volume34
    Issue number25
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2024 Jun 19

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2024 Wiley-VCH GmbH.

    Keywords

    • all-polymer solar cells
    • efficiency
    • near-infrared
    • polymer acceptor
    • steric hindrance

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
    • General Chemistry
    • Biomaterials
    • General Materials Science
    • Condensed Matter Physics
    • Electrochemistry

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