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D-A(1)-D-A(2) Copolymers with Extended Donor Segments for Efficient Polymer Solar Cells

Tao, Qiang ; Xia, Yuxin ; Xu, Xiaofeng ; Hedström, Svante LU ; Backe, Olof ; James, David I. ; Persson, Petter LU ; Olsson, Eva ; Inganas, Olle and Hou, Lintao , et al. (2015) In Macromolecules 48(4). p.1009-1016
Abstract
Typically a donor-acceptor (D-A) design strategy is used for engineering the bandgap of polymers for solar cells. However, in this work, a series of alternating D-A(1-)D-A(2) copolymers PnTQTI(F) were synthesized and characterized with oligothiophenes (nT, n = 1, 2, 3) as the donor and two electron-deficient moieties, quinoxaline and isoindigo, as the acceptors in the repeating unit. We have studied the influence of the donor segments with different numbers of thiophene units and the effect of the addition of fluorine to the quinoxaline unit of the D-A(1)-D-A(2) polymers. The photophysical, electrochemical, and photovoltaic properties of the polymers were examined via a range of techniques and related to theoretical simulations. On... (More)
Typically a donor-acceptor (D-A) design strategy is used for engineering the bandgap of polymers for solar cells. However, in this work, a series of alternating D-A(1-)D-A(2) copolymers PnTQTI(F) were synthesized and characterized with oligothiophenes (nT, n = 1, 2, 3) as the donor and two electron-deficient moieties, quinoxaline and isoindigo, as the acceptors in the repeating unit. We have studied the influence of the donor segments with different numbers of thiophene units and the effect of the addition of fluorine to the quinoxaline unit of the D-A(1)-D-A(2) polymers. The photophysical, electrochemical, and photovoltaic properties of the polymers were examined via a range of techniques and related to theoretical simulations. On increasing the length of the donor thiophene units, broader absorption spectra were observed in addition to a sequential increase in HOMO levels, while the LUMO levels displayed very small variations. The addition of fluorine to the quinoxaline unit not only decreased the HOMO levels of the resulting polymers but also enhanced the absorption coefficients. A superior photovoltaic performance was observed for the P3TQTI-F-based device with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.0%, which is the highest efficiency for alternating D-A(1)-D-A(2) polymers reported to date. The structureproperty correlations of the PnTQTI(F) polymers demonstrate that varying of the length of the donor segments is a valuable method for designing high-performance D-A(1)-D-A(2) copolymers and highlight the promising nature of D-A(1)-D-A(2) copolymers for efficient bulk-heterojunction solar cells. (Less)
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Macromolecules
volume
48
issue
4
pages
1009 - 1016
publisher
The American Chemical Society (ACS)
external identifiers
  • wos:000350193900015
  • scopus:84923358089
ISSN
0024-9297
DOI
10.1021/ma502186g
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: Theoretical Chemistry (S) (011001039)
id
17299628-4e88-4e90-96af-20684a5571dd (old id 5303405)
date added to LUP
2016-04-01 10:36:46
date last changed
2023-01-02 06:09:38
@article{17299628-4e88-4e90-96af-20684a5571dd,
  abstract     = {{Typically a donor-acceptor (D-A) design strategy is used for engineering the bandgap of polymers for solar cells. However, in this work, a series of alternating D-A(1-)D-A(2) copolymers PnTQTI(F) were synthesized and characterized with oligothiophenes (nT, n = 1, 2, 3) as the donor and two electron-deficient moieties, quinoxaline and isoindigo, as the acceptors in the repeating unit. We have studied the influence of the donor segments with different numbers of thiophene units and the effect of the addition of fluorine to the quinoxaline unit of the D-A(1)-D-A(2) polymers. The photophysical, electrochemical, and photovoltaic properties of the polymers were examined via a range of techniques and related to theoretical simulations. On increasing the length of the donor thiophene units, broader absorption spectra were observed in addition to a sequential increase in HOMO levels, while the LUMO levels displayed very small variations. The addition of fluorine to the quinoxaline unit not only decreased the HOMO levels of the resulting polymers but also enhanced the absorption coefficients. A superior photovoltaic performance was observed for the P3TQTI-F-based device with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.0%, which is the highest efficiency for alternating D-A(1)-D-A(2) polymers reported to date. The structureproperty correlations of the PnTQTI(F) polymers demonstrate that varying of the length of the donor segments is a valuable method for designing high-performance D-A(1)-D-A(2) copolymers and highlight the promising nature of D-A(1)-D-A(2) copolymers for efficient bulk-heterojunction solar cells.}},
  author       = {{Tao, Qiang and Xia, Yuxin and Xu, Xiaofeng and Hedström, Svante and Backe, Olof and James, David I. and Persson, Petter and Olsson, Eva and Inganas, Olle and Hou, Lintao and Zhu, Weiguo and Wang, Ergang}},
  issn         = {{0024-9297}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{4}},
  pages        = {{1009--1016}},
  publisher    = {{The American Chemical Society (ACS)}},
  series       = {{Macromolecules}},
  title        = {{D-A(1)-D-A(2) Copolymers with Extended Donor Segments for Efficient Polymer Solar Cells}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ma502186g}},
  doi          = {{10.1021/ma502186g}},
  volume       = {{48}},
  year         = {{2015}},
}