Optical and Electrochemical Properties of a Photosensitive Pyromellitic Diimide Derivative of Cymantrene

Photochemical properties of symmetrical pyromellitic diimide containing two cymantrenyl fragments at two nitrogen atoms were studied with IR, NMR, UV-vis, ESI-MS, and cyclic voltammetry. It was found that new unstable chelates are formed during photolysis. At the same time, the CO ligand dissociates from two Mn(CO)3 fragments during photoexcitation, which dramatically changes the electronic and redox properties of the molecule compared to the cymantrene derivative containing one imide fragment. Photolysis leads to a color change from light yellow to green. DFT calculations confirmed the possibility of the formation of complexes due to the loss of one or two CO ligands from manganese atoms. The results obtained with variation of photolysis conditions demonstrated the hemilabile character of the Mn-O=C(imide) bond. On addition of external ligands, the color and electrochemical properties changed, which is promising for the use of this complex as a sensor for small molecules.

Computational Design of Crescent Shaped Promising Nonfullerene Acceptors with 1,4-Dihydro-2,3-quinoxalinedione Core and Different Electron-withdrawing Terminal Units for Photovoltaic Applications

This study aims to design a series of nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs) for photovoltaic applications having 1,4-dihydro-2,3-quinoxalinedione fused thiophene derivative as the core unit and 1,1-dicyanomethylene-3-indanone (IC) derivatives and different π-conjugated molecules other than IC as terminal acceptor units. All the investigated NFAs are found air-stable as the computed highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMOs) are below the air oxidation threshold (ca. -5.27 eV vs saturated calomel electrode). The studied NFAs can act as potential nonfullerene acceptor candidates as they are found to have sufficient open-circuit voltage (V_oc) and fill factor (FF) ranging from 0.62 to 1.41 V and 83%-91%, respectively. From the anisotropic mobility analysis, it is noticed that the studied NFAs except dicyano-rhodanine terminal unit containing NFA, exhibit better electron mobility than the hole mobility, and therefore, they can be more promising electron transporting acceptor materials in the active layer of an organic photovoltaic cell. From the optical absorption analysis, it is noted that all the designed NFAs have the maximum absorption spectra ranging from 597 nm-730 nm, which lies in the visible region and near-infrared (IR) region of the solar spectrum. The computed light-harvesting efficiencies for the PM6 (thiophene derivative donor selected in our study):NFA blends are found to lie in the range of 0.96-0.99, which indicates efficient light-harvesting by the PM6:NFA blends during photovoltaic device operation.

Computational study of electron transport in halogen incorporated diindenotetracene compounds: crystal structure, charge transport and optoelectronic properties

The crystal structure, charge transport and optoelectronic properties of newly designed air-stable halogenated diindenotetracene (DIT) based OSCs are reported in this article. The structural, electronic and charge transport properties of the compounds are investigated using density functional theory (DFT) formalism. The air-stability and n-type characteristics are validated from their low lying LUMO energies (<-3.9 eV) and large electron affinity (EA) values (>3.0 eV). Compared with the parent DIT, the designed DIT-X compounds (except for DIT-I) exhibit larger electronic coupling (V^e is found to be ∼1.5 times larger than that of the bare DIT) and higher electron mobilities because of the effect of electron-withdrawing groups substituted at the peripheral positions of the DIT derivatives. The designed DIT-X compounds (except DIT-I) show high electron mobilities (∼2.4-5.4 cm² V^-1 s^-1), implying that the compounds can serve as promising electron transport materials. In addition, the UV-visible optical spectra of DIT derivatives (except DIT-F) display bathochromic shifts as compared to the bare DIT compound.

Synergistic effects of side-functionalization and aza-substitution on the charge transport and optical properties of perylene-based organic materials: a DFT study

The physicochemical properties of organic materials are subject to the chemical structure of the molecular unit and the arrangement of molecules in a crystal.