Development of Organic Dye-Based Molecular Materials for Use in Fullerene-Free Organic Solar Cells.

This personal account describes the pursuit of non-fullerene acceptors designed from simple and accessible organic pi-conjugated building blocks and assembled through efficient direct (hetero)arylation cross-coupling protocols. Initial materials development focused on isoindigo and diketopyrrolopyrrole organic dyes flanked by imide-based terminal acceptors. Efficiencies in solution-processed organic solar cells were modest but highlighted the potential of the material design. Materials performance was improved through structural engineering to pair perylene diimide with these organic dyes. Optimization of active layer processing and solar cell device fabrication identified the perylene diimide flanked diketopyrrolopyrrole structure as the best framework, with fullerene-free organic solar cells achieving power conversion efficiencies above 6 %. This material has met our criteria for a simple wide band gap fullerene alternative for pairing with a range of donor polymers.

Synthesis and structure-property relationships of phthalimide and naphthalimide based organic π-conjugated small molecules.

Five organic π-conjugated small molecules with bithiophene-phthalimide backbones bearing alkyl chains of different symmetry, length and branching character were synthesized using optimized microwave and direct heteroarylation protocols. The chosen alkyl chains were 1-ethylpropyl, 1-methylbutyl, pentyl, hexyl and octyl. A sixth compound was also synthesized replacing the phthalimide terminal units with octylnaphthalimide for additional scope. Through the thorough analysis of both thermal and optical properties and the investigation of self-assembly tendencies by single crystal X-ray diffraction and variable angle spectroscopic ellipsometry it is evident that alkyl side chains and building block size influence many facets of material properties. Within this class of materials the 1-ethylpropyl derivative exhibited the most unique behaviour.

An electron-deficient small molecule accessible from sustainable synthesis and building blocks for use as a fullerene alternative in organic photovoltaics.

An electron-deficient small molecule accessible from sustainable isoindigo and phthalimide building blocks was synthesized via optimized synthetic procedures that incorporate microwave-assisted synthesis and a heterogeneous catalyst for Suzuki coupling, and direct heteroarylation carbon-carbon bond forming reactions. The material was designed as a non-fullerene acceptor with the help of DFT calculations and characterized by optical, electronic, and thermal analysis. Further investigation of the material revealed a differing solid-state morphology with the use of three well-known processing conditions: thermal annealing, solvent vapor annealing and small volume fractions of 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO) additive. These unique morphologies persist in the active layer blends and have demonstrated a distinct influence on device performance. Organic photovoltaic-bulk heterojunction (OPV-BHJ) devices show an inherently high open circuit voltage (Voc ) with the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) cells reaching 1.0 V with 0.4 v/v % DIO as a processing additive.

Design and computational characterization of non-fullerene acceptors for use in solution-processable solar cells.

In an effort to seek high-performance small molecule electron acceptor materials for use in heterojunction solar cells, computational chemistry was used to examine a variety of terminal acceptor-conjugated bridge-core acceptor-conjugated bridge-terminal acceptor small molecules. In particular, we have systematically predicted the geometric, electronic, and optical properties of 16 potential small-molecule acceptors based upon a series of electron deficient π-conjugated building blocks that have been incorporated into materials exhibiting good electron transport properties. Results show that the band gap, HOMO/LUMO energy levels, orbital spatial distribution, and intrinsic dipole moments can be systematically altered by varying the electron properties of the terminal or core acceptor units. In addition, the identity of the conjugated bridge can help fine-tune the electronic properties of the molecule, where this study showed that the strongest electron affinity of the conjugated π-bridge increased the stability in the HOMO and LUMO energies and increased the band gap of these small-molecule acceptors. As a result, this work points toward an isoindigo (C5) core combined with C2-thienopyrrole dione (A5) terminal units as the most promising small molecule acceptor material that can be fine-tuned with the choice of conjugated bridge and may be considered as reasonable candidates for synthesis and incorporation into organic solar cells.