Rational Design Dithieno[3,2-f:2',3'-h]quinoxaline-Based Polymers with Optimized Molecular Configuration and Charge Transfer for High-Performance All-Polymer Solar Cells.

ABSTRACT

Due to poor planarity and weak intermolecular interactions of acceptor units which have two-dimensional configuration, the development of related polymers is slow. In this work, we synthesized a dithieno[3,2-f2',3'-h]quinoxaline-based unit substituted with fluorinated thiophene, which can effectively expand the area of the acceptor unit. Then, it paired with three different benzodithiophene-based donor units, and three new polymers of PQTF-BT, PQTF-BTCl and PQTF-DTCl were obtained. PQTF-BT with thiophene side chain exhibits appropriate aggregation and crystallization performance, and the PQTF-BTPY-IT all-polymer solar cells exhibit high device efficiency of 15.54%. Meanwhile, PQTF-BTCl with chlorination strategy on thiophene side chain further enhances the open-circuit voltage of related devices. However, it has negative impact on the miscibility and charge transfer of the material, leading to a poor efficiency of 8.71% in the PQTF-BTClPY-IT device. To reinforce miscibility, PQTF-DTCl with expanded backbone planarity was further studied. However, the big dihedral angles of the donor side chains disrupted the effective stacking of the molecules, resulting in great recovery of device performance to 13.42%. This work provides research ideas for the design of polymers with two-dimensional configuration side chain and match selection of donor units.