Issue 12, 2011
From the journal:

Polymer Chemistry

A furan-bridged D-π-A copolymer with deep HOMO level: synthesis and application in polymer solar cells

Xiaochen Wang,a   Song Chen,ac   Yeping Sun,ab   Maojie Zhang,b   Yongfang Li,*b   Xiaoyu Li*a  and  Haiqiao Wang*a  

* Corresponding authors

a Key Laboratory of Carbon Fiber and Functional Polymers, Ministry of Education, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China
E-mail: wanghaiqiao@mail.buct.edu.cn, lixy@mail.buct.edu.cn

b CAS Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
E-mail: liyf@iccas.ac.cn

c Division of Molecular and Materials Simulation, Key Lab for Nanomaterials, Ministry of Education, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, China

Abstract

A novel D-π-A copolymer, PFBT-BDT, based on furan-containing benzothiadiazole (FBT) and benzodithiophene (BDT) was designed and synthesized by Pd-catalyzed Stille-coupling method. The copolymer showed good solubility and film-forming ability combining with good thermal stability. PFBT-BDT exhibited a broad absorption from 300 to 630 nm with an absorption peak centered at 522 nm. The optical band gap (Egopt) determined from the onset of absorption of the polymer film was 1.96 eV. The LUMO and HOMO energy levels of the polymer were estimated to be −3.48 eV and −5.44 eV, respectively. The polymer solar cell fabricated from the blend of the polymer as donor and PC71BM as acceptor exhibited a moderate power conversion efficiency of 2.81% with a high Voc of 0.94 V without annealing and any additives. To the best of our knowledge, this is among the highest Voc values for PSCs based on benzodithiophene derivatives. This work demonstrates that the replacement of thiophene moieties in conjugated polymers with more electron-withdrawing furan moieties is able to significantly lower the HOMO energy levels, and therefore, increase the open circuit voltage of solar cells.

Graphical abstract: A furan-bridged D-π-A copolymer with deep HOMO level: synthesis and application in polymer solar cells

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C1PY00364J
Article type
Paper
Submitted
18 Aug 2011
Accepted
15 Sep 2011
First published
13 Oct 2011

Polym. Chem., 2011,2, 2872-2877

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A furan-bridged D-π-A copolymer with deep HOMO level: synthesis and application in polymer solar cells

X. Wang, S. Chen, Y. Sun, M. Zhang, Y. Li, X. Li and H. Wang, Polym. Chem., 2011, 2, 2872 DOI: 10.1039/C1PY00364J

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