Exploiting Noncovalently Conformational Locking as a Design Strategy for High Performance Fused-Ring Electron Acceptor Used in Polymer Solar Cells

• Published in: Journal of the American Chemical Society Vol. 139; no. 9; pp. 3356 - 3359
• Main Authors: Liu, Yahui, Zhang, Zhe, Feng, Shiyu, Li, Miao, Wu, Liangliang, Hou, Ran, Xu, Xinjun, Chen, Xuebo, Bo, Zhishan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 08-03-2017
• ISSN: 0002-7863; 1520-5126
• DOI: 10.1021/jacs.7b00566

We have developed a kind of novel fused-ring small molecular acceptor, whose planar conformation can be locked by intramolecular noncovalent interaction. The formation of planar supramolecular fused-ring structure by conformation locking can effectively broaden its absorption spectrum, enhance the electron mobility, and reduce the nonradiative energy loss. Polymer solar cells (PSCs) based on this acceptor afforded a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.6%. In contrast, PSCs based on similar acceptor, which cannot form a flat conformation, only gave a PCE of 2.3%. Such design strategy, which can make the synthesis of small molecular acceptor much easier, will be promising in developing a new acceptor for high efficiency polymer solar cells.