A rhodanine flanked nonfullerene acceptor for solution-processed organic photovoltaics
Type
ArticleAuthors
Holliday, SarahAshraf, Raja Shahid
Nielsen, Christian Bergenstof
Kirkus, Mindaugas

Röhr, Jason A.
Tan, Chinghong
Collado-Fregoso, Elisa
Knall, Astrid Caroline
Durrant, James R.

Nelson, Jenny K.
McCulloch, Iain

KAUST Department
Chemical Science ProgramKAUST Solar Center (KSC)
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Date
2015-01-12Online Publication Date
2015-01-12Print Publication Date
2015-01-21Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/564016
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
A novel small molecule, FBR, bearing 3-ethylrhodanine flanking groups was synthesized as a nonfullerene electron acceptor for solution-processed bulk heterojunction organic photovoltaics (OPV). A straightforward synthesis route was employed, offering the potential for large scale preparation of this material. Inverted OPV devices employing poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as the donor polymer and FBR as the acceptor gave power conversion efficiencies (PCE) up to 4.1%. Transient and steady state optical spectroscopies indicated efficient, ultrafast charge generation and efficient photocurrent generation from both donor and acceptor. Ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy was used to investigate polaron generation efficiency as well as recombination dynamics. It was determined that the P3HT:FBR blend is highly intermixed, leading to increased charge generation relative to comparative devices with P3HT:PC60BM, but also faster recombination due to a nonideal morphology in which, in contrast to P3HT:PC60BM devices, the acceptor does not aggregate enough to create appropriate percolation pathways that prevent fast nongeminate recombination. Despite this nonoptimal morphology the P3HT:FBR devices exhibit better performance than P3HT:PC60BM devices, used as control, demonstrating that this acceptor shows great promise for further optimization.Citation
Holliday, S., Ashraf, R. S., Nielsen, C. B., Kirkus, M., Röhr, J. A., Tan, C.-H., … McCulloch, I. (2015). A Rhodanine Flanked Nonfullerene Acceptor for Solution-Processed Organic Photovoltaics. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 137(2), 898–904. doi:10.1021/ja5110602Sponsors
We thank BASF for partial financial support, as well as EPSRC (EP/G037515/1) and EPSRC (EP/L016702/1), and EC FP7 Projects X10D (287818) and Nanomatcell (308997) for financial support. A.-C.K. acknowledges the Austrian Science Fund (FWF):[T 578-N19] for financial support.Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1021/ja5110602