Article
Chemistry, Applied
Cong-Huan Wang, Zhan-Chen Gao, Weipeng Sun, Xugang Guo, Fei-Bao Zhang
Summary: BBFP and BBTP were synthesized by reacting dilithio(benzothienylbenzofuran) or dilithio(benzothienylbenzothiophene) with Diphenylphosphinic chloride, followed by reduction with trichlomsilane to afford the target products. Optical and electrochemical measurements, along with DFT calculations, showed that P⋯O noncovalent conformational locks played an important role in constructing highly planar BBFP, while BBTP exhibited a distorted structure with very low PL quantum yields.
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Jiaxin Zhong, Yongjie Cui, Peipei Zhu, Ming Zhang, Wenchao Xie, Hengchen Liu, Qian Xie, Feng Liu, Xunfan Liao, Yiwang Chen
Summary: Nonfused ring electron acceptors (NFREAs) have become a research hotspot in organic solar cells due to their facile synthesis and need to optimize molecular structure for good planarity. Choosing appropriate building blocks and introducing noncovalent interactions can enhance molecular planarity and efficiency. The use of the 2T2C unit and multi-molecular conformational lock strategy can lead to the development of efficient NFREAs.
ACS APPLIED ENERGY MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Energy & Fuels
Maria Privado, Anupam Agrawal, Pilar de la Cruz, Mukhamed L. Keshtov, Ganesh D. Sharma, Fernando Langa
Summary: The synthesis of highly planar extended pi-electron molecules with noncovalent intramolecular interactions is crucial for the development of efficient nonfullerene acceptors in organic solar cells. The two small-molecule acceptors designed and synthesized in this study show broad absorption in the visible and near-infrared region, with devices containing selenophene demonstrating better film morphology, electron mobility, and higher efficiency compared to those containing thiophene.
Article
Engineering, Environmental
Cai'e Zhang, Yaya Zhang, Liwen Wang, Hongbo Wu, Baohua Wu, Zheng Tang, Wei Ma, Zhenghui Luo, Cuihong Li, Zhishan Bo, Chuluo Yang
Summary: In this study, three novel small molecular acceptors (SMAs) were designed and synthesized. The addition of intramolecular noncovalent interaction led to the formation of planar molecular backbone in these acceptors. Among them, the acceptor with four side chains exhibited the highest solubility and formed more suitable nanomorphology when blended with PBDB-T, resulting in an outstanding power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 14.25% in organic solar cells. Our findings suggest that the combination of sidechain engineering and intramolecular conformation lock holds great promise in designing high-performance SMAs for solar cells.
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING JOURNAL
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Chenfei Zhu, Qing Luo, Yunxia Shen, Chunyan Lv, Sanhu Zhao, Xiaojing Lv, Feng Cao, Kunyan Wang, Qingbao Song, Cheng Zhang, Yujian Zhang
Summary: This study presents the design and preparation of metal-free luminophores with piezochromic properties, achieved by locking the planar conformation through noncovalent interactions, leading to significant differences in fluorescence emission wavelengths in the near-infrared region. The strategy is shown to be simple yet effective, offering a promising approach to develop organic piezochromic materials with wide-range redshift and excellent penetrability.
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION
(2021)
Review
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Amaresh Mishra, Ganesh D. Sharma
Summary: The development of commercially viable organic solar cells (OSCs) requires reducing the efficiency-stability-cost gap. This can be achieved by minimizing synthetic steps while maintaining molecular planarity and efficiencies achieved by fused ring acceptors (FRAs). Developing non-fused ring acceptors (NFRAs) with suitable functionalization for conformational planarity and molecular packing can be cost-effective. Although NFRAs currently have a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of around 16%, lower than FRAs' 19%, understanding their effective structural design is crucial for efficient OSC development. This article focuses on the molecular design concept for NFRAs in recent years and analyzes the approach to material design and efficiency improvement, a significant step toward technological application.
ANGEWANDTE CHEMIE-INTERNATIONAL EDITION
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Yuan Zhou, Qian Wang, Pengzhi Guo, Xiaoqing You, Xianzheng Li, Shaotong Wang, Yi Liu, Chenglong Wang, Xianyu Deng, Yangjun Xia
Summary: An alternating narrow bandgap conjugated polymer named POT-DPP was developed and used in organic photodiode detectors (OPDs). The polymer showed enhanced light absorption, increased dielectric constant, upshifted HOMO energy level, and improved planarity of conjugated molecules compared to the reference polymer. The OPDs based on POT-DPP:PC71BM blends exhibited high specific detectivity, a wide linear dynamic range, and fast response speed. Optimizations in structure and parameters further increased the specific detectivity of the OPDs.
ACS APPLIED ELECTRONIC MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Yongwen Lang, Hui Chen, Hanjian Lai, Yi Lu, Yulin Zhu, Peiyuan Yu, Feng He
Summary: The importance of noncovalent conformational locks in molecular design and organic photovoltaic materials is studied. By comparing the properties of two structural isomers, it is found that molecules with highly planar conformations have higher power conversion efficiency.
ACS APPLIED ENERGY MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Florian Le Roux, Andreas Mischok, Donal D. C. Bradley, Malte C. Gather
Summary: This study successfully reduced the threshold of organic exciton-photon polariton lasers by tuning molecular conformation and orientation. It also achieved anisotropic polariton lasing, showing potential applications.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Zhenghui Yao, Yaokai Li, Shuixing Li, Jiale Xiang, Xinxin Xia, Xinhui Lu, Minmin Shi, Hongzheng Chen
Summary: By utilizing the molecular isomerization strategy, three simple nonfused electron acceptors were synthesized, with AOT3 exhibiting superior performance due to multiple O···S interactions that lock the molecular backbone, resulting in higher efficiency when paired with polymer donor PCE10 in photovoltaic devices.
ACS APPLIED ENERGY MATERIALS
(2021)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Xin Zhang, Linqing Qin, Yuhao Li, Jianwei Yu, Hao Chen, Xiaobin Gu, Yanan Wei, Xinhui Lu, Feng Gao, Hui Huang
Summary: By using noncovalent conformational locks (NoCLs), a pair of regioisomeric small-molecule donors (SMDs) has been synthesized, and the significant influence of regioisomeric effect on device performance has been demonstrated. Among different SMDs, BT-O2 exhibits better performance, and the introduction of fullerene derivative PC71BM further improves the performance.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2022)
Article
Polymer Science
Xiao-Bin Gu, Jin-Hua Gao, Zi-Yang Han, Yu-Hao Shi, Ya-Nan Wei, Yin-Cheng Zhang, Qian Peng, Zhi-Xiang Wei, Xin Zhang, Hui Huang
Summary: This work presents the design and synthesis of a simple building block (POBT) with noncovalently conformational locks (NoCLs) for developing high-performance nonfused ring electron acceptors (NFREAs). The introduction of NoCLs enhances the molecular rigidity of the NFREAs and leads to improved power conversion efficiency in the photovoltaic device based on TT-POBT.
CHINESE JOURNAL OF POLYMER SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Yunchuan Li, Mingjun Sun, Shuai Chang, Zhiye Wang, Mingzhu Huang, Jianqiao Dong, Xu Wang
Summary: This study demonstrated the creation of through-space channels by substituting the H atom of the central benzene in a starting molecule with F. The single-molecule conductance investigation showed an increased molecular conductance with more F substituents. Theoretical analysis revealed that noncovalent conformational locks (NCLs) played a major role in enhancing electron transport rates and creating additional through-space channels.
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Physical
Zhiye Wang, Mingzhu Huang, Jianqiao Dong, Xu Wang, Yunchuan Li, Mingjun Sun, Shuai Chang
Summary: In this study, we demonstrated the creation of through-space channels in the molecular backbone by substituting the H atom with F on the central benzene of the starting molecule DT-B, which formed noncovalent conformational locks (NCLs) with the thiophene S. The investigation of single-molecule conductance showed that the molecular conductance increased with more F substituents. Theoretical analysis revealed that NCLs played a significant role in enhancing electron transport rates and creating additional through-space channels.
JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY C
(2023)
Article
Chemistry, Multidisciplinary
Congqi Li, Xin Zhang, Na Yu, Xiaobin Gu, Linqing Qin, Yanan Wei, Xingzheng Liu, Jianqi Zhang, Zhixiang Wei, Zheng Tang, Qinqin Shi, Hui Huang
Summary: The development of nonfused-ring electron acceptors (NREAs) as a promising candidate for organic solar cells (OSCs) is presented in this paper. A novel series of NREAs-II are constructed to explore their impact on device performance, demonstrating their potential for low-cost and high-performance OSCs.
ADVANCED FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS
(2022)
