An Effective D-π-A Type Donor Material Based on 4-Fluorobenzoylacetonitrile Core Unit for Bulk Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells

In order to develop new and effective donor materials, a planar donor-pi-acceptor (D-pi-A) type small organic molecule (SOM), 2-(4-fluorobenzoyl)-3-(5 ''-hexyl-[2,2 ':5 ',2 ''-terthiophen]-5-yl) acrylonitrile, named as H3T-4-FOP, was synthesized by the reaction of 4-fluorobenzoylacetonitrile (as acceptor unit) and hexyl terthiophene (as donor unit) derivatives. Promising optical, solubility, electronic and photovoltaic properties were observed for the H3T-4-FOP SOM. Significantly, the presence of 4-fluorobenzoylacetonitrile as an acceptor unit in H3T-4-FOP SOM tuned the optical band gap to similar to 2.01 eV and procured the reasonable energy levels as highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) of -5.27 eV and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) -3.26 eV. The synthesized H3T-4-FOP SOM was applied as a donor material to fabricate solution-processed bulk heterojunction organic solar cells (BHJ-OSCs) with an active layer of H3T-4-FOP: PC61BM (1:2, w/w) and was validated as having a good power conversion efficiency (PCE) of similar to 4.38%. Our studies clearly inspire for future designing of multifunctional groups containing the 4-fluorobenzoylacetonitrile based SOM for high performance BHJ-OSCs.

Automated summary

A novel planar donor-pi-acceptor type small organic molecule, H3T-4-FOP, was synthesized and showed promising optical, solubility, electronic and photovoltaic properties. This molecule was applied to fabricate organic solar cells with good power conversion efficiency, suggesting potential for future high-performance applications.