Synthesis and photovoltaic performance of a non-fullerene acceptor comprising siloxane-terminated alkoxyl side chain

As an effective molecular modification strategy, side chain engineering has been widely used in promoting the photovoltaic performance of non-fullerene acceptors. Herein, a novel non-fullerene small molecular acceptor iIEOSi-4F comprising siloxane-terminated alkoxyl side chain was successfully designed and synthesized. The molecule shows an optical band gap of 1.53 eV, with large extinction coefficient of 2.36 ? 105 M-1 cm-1 in solution. Two fluorobenzotriazole based polymers J52 and PBZ-2Si with the same backbone units but different side chains were employed as the donor to construct the active layers that all can demonstrate suitable energy levels and complementary absorptions with i-IEOSi-4F. Relative to J52 only bearing alkyl side chain, PBZ-2Si with siloxane-terminated side chain could induce more balanced carrier transports and more favorable morphology, leading to a higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 12.66% with a good fill factor of 71.45%. The efficiency is 21% higher than that of 10.46% for the J52 based devices. Our results not only indicate that siloxane-terminated alkoxyl side chain is valuable for efficient non-fullerene acceptors, but also demonstrate that siloxane-terminated side chain on both polymer donor and small molecular acceptor is a useful combination to realize more efficient polymer solar cells.

Automated summary

Side chain engineering is an effective strategy to enhance the photovoltaic performance of non-fullerene acceptors. A novel non-fullerene small molecular acceptor, iIEOSi-4F, with a siloxane-terminated alkoxyl side chain was successfully synthesized, showing promising optical and electronic properties. The combination of siloxane-terminated side chain on both polymer donor and small molecular acceptor demonstrated significantly improved power conversion efficiency in polymer solar cells.