Effect of additives on the photovoltaic properties of organic solar cells based on triphenylamine-containing amorphous molecules

Efficient Organic Solar Cells Based on Non-Fullerene Acceptors with Two Planar Thiophene-Fused Perylene Diimide Units

We designed and synthesized two non-fullerene acceptors (CDT-TFP and C8X-TFP), which comprise a central 4H-cyclopenta[2,1-b:3,4-b']dithiophene (CDT) as the bridge and two thiophene-fused perylene diimide (TFP) units. The bulky side chains, such as the 4-hexylphenyl side chains, on the CDT bridge can effectively prevent the acceptor molecules from forming large aggregates, and the π-π stacking of the terminal planar TFP units can form effective electron transport pathways when blending with the donor polymers. These non-fullerene acceptors are used to fabricate organic solar cells (OSCs) by blending with the regioregular middle bandgap polymer reg-PThE. The as-cast devices based on reg-PThE:CDT-TFP show the best power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 8.36% with a V_oc of 1.10 V, J_sc of 12.43 mA cm^-2, and an FF of 61.4%, whereas the analogue perylene diimide (PDI) dimers (CDT-PDI) that comprise two PDI units bridged with a CDT unit show only a 2.59% PCE with a V_oc of 0.92 V, J_sc of 6.82 mA cm^-2, and an FF of 41.5%. Our results have demonstrated that the non-fullerene acceptors comprising planar PDI units can achieve excellent photovoltaic performance and provide meaningful guidelines for the design of PDI-based non-fullerene electron acceptors for efficient OSCs.

Preparation of a novel nanocomposite NaLuF4:Gd,Yb,Tm@SiO2@Ag@TiO2 with high photocatalytic activity driven by simulated solar light

A novel nanocomposite photocatalyst NaLuF₄:Gd,Yb,Tm@SiO₂@Ag@TiO₂ was developed for the first time.

Solution-Processable Organic Molecule for High-Performance Organic Solar Cells with Low Acceptor Content

A new planar D2-A-D1-A-D2 structured organic molecule with bithienyl benzodithiophene (BDT) as central donor unit D1 and fluorine-substituted benzothiadiazole (BTF) as acceptor unit and alkyl-dithiophene as end group and donor unit D2, BDT-BTF, was designed and synthesized for the application as donor material in organic solar cells (OSCs). BDT-BTF shows a broad absorption in visible region, suitable highest occupied molecular orbital energy level of -5.20 eV, and high hole mobility of 1.07 × 10(-2) cm(2)/(V s), benefitted from its high coplanarity and strong crystallinity. The OSCs based on BDT-BTF as donor (D) and PC71BM as acceptor (A) at a D/A weight ratio of 3:1 without any extra treatment exhibit high photovoltaic performance with Voc of 0.85 V, Jsc of 10.48 mA/cm(2), FF of 0.66, and PCE of 5.88%. The morphological study by transmission electron microscopy reveals that the blend of BDT-BTF and PC71BM (3:1, w/w) possesses an appropriate interpenetrating D/A network for the exciton separation and charge carrier transport, which agrees well with the good device performance. The optimized D/A weight ratio of 3:1 is the lowest acceptor content in the active layer reported so far for the high-performance OSCs, and the organic molecules with the molecular structure like BDT-BTF could be promising high-performance donor materials in solution-processable OSCs.

Unprecedentedly targeted customization of molecular energy levels with auxiliary-groups in organic solar cell sensitizers

Lowering the LUMOs and decreasing energy “waste” is targeted through inserting an auxiliary group from an electron donor or acceptor into D–π–A organic sensitizers, and the photovoltaic efficiency increases 38 fold from 0.24 to 9.46%.

In dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), the HOMO–LUMO energy gap of organic sensitizers should be large enough to enable efficient electron injection and dye regeneration. However, the LUMOs of most practical organic dyes are always too high, making energy “waste”. In order to deepen the LUMOs, we focus on the targeted modulation of the molecular energy levels by embedding an electron donor or acceptor into the skeleton of a typical D–π–A model. The electron-rich group of 3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene (EDOT) lifts up the HOMO level with little influence on the LUMO, while the electron-deficient group of benzothiadiazole (BTD) or benzooxadiazole (BOD) mainly lowers the customized LUMO level. As a consequence, the auxiliary group change from EDOT (dye WS-53) to BOD (dye WS-55) brings forth a huge photoelectric conversion efficiency (PCE) increase by 38 fold from 0.24 to 9.46% based on an I^–/I₃^– redox couple, and even reaching a high PCE of 10.14% with WS-55 under 0.3 sunlight irradiation.