Fine‐Tuning the Photovoltaic Performance of Organic Solar Cells by Collaborative Optimization of Structural Isomerism and Halogen Atom

Abstract

Fused‐ring acceptors based on an electron‐deficient core, such as Y6, have become a successful strategy in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells (OSCs) for high power conversion efficiencies (PCEs). Here, five fused‐ring electron acceptors (Y9, Y9‐2F, Y9‐2Cl, i‐Y9‐2F, i‐Y9‐2Cl) are synthesized using fused dithienothiophen[3,2‐b]pyrrolobenzotriazole and halogenated 1,1‐dicyanomethylene‐3‐indanone (IC) to investigate the effect of end‐group (EG) halogenation and structural isomerism on BHJ photovoltaic performance. Due to the strong electronegativity of halogens, all the acceptors with halogenated terminal units possess redshifted absorption spectra and deeper frontier energy levels compared with Y9. Different from asymmetric molecules i‐Y9‐2F and i‐Y9‐2Cl, Y9‐2F and Y9‐2Cl exhibit slightly lower bandgaps. Moreover, the devices based on fluorinated acceptors show more efficient charge collection, obtaining relatively high short‐circuit current density (J sc) and fill factor (FF). The lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy levels of halogenated acceptors are similar. As a result, OSCs based on poly[(2,6‐(4,8‐bis(5‐(2‐ethylhexyl)thiophen‐2‐yl)‐benzo[1,2‐b:4,5‐b′]dithio‐phene))‐alt‐(5,5‐ (1′,3′‐di‐2‐thienyl‐5′,7′‐bis(2‐ethyl‐hexyl) benzo[1′,2′‐c:4′,5′‐c′]dithiophene‐4,8‐dione))] (PBDB‐T):Y9‐2F obtain more balanced J sc and open‐circuit voltage (V oc), and thus an optimal PCE of 15.49% is demonstrated with a V oc of 0.84 V, J sc of 26.30 mA cm−2, and FF of 70.05%.

Keywords

• end groups
• fused-ring electron acceptors
• halogenation
• structural isomerism