Novel thiazolothiazole based linear chromophore for small molecule organic solar cells

Novel pi-conjugated linear organic chromophore (RTzR) based on thiazolothiazole-core (acceptor-unit) and terminal alkylated-thiophenes (donor-unit) was designed as an active material for organic solar cells. Terminal alkyl units at both ends of chromophore significantly improved its solubility and also induced liquid crystalline property which was responsible for the self-assembly behavior of the chromophore. The fabricated bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) solar cell showed reasonable power conversion efficiency of similar to 1.57% with high photocurrent density of similar to 7.85 mA/cm(2). (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.