Benzobisthiazole Polymer with Resonance-assisted Hydrogen Bonds for High-performance Transistor and Solar Cell Applications

Benzobisthiazole polymer with resonance-assisted hydrogen bonds (RAHBs) has been synthesized for both organic field-effect transistor and polymer solar cell applications. The properties of the hydrogen bonded polymer are compared with the reference polymer without RAHBs. Single-crystal X-ray diffraction analyses of the building block reveal that the RAHB interactions are formed between the carbamate hydrogen and imine nitrogen of the thiazoles. The hydrogen donor and acceptor are connected by pi-conjugated molecular framework and the hydrogen-bridged quasi aromatic rings lock the conformation of the building block. The building block adopted a layered sandwich packing in crystal instead of slipped herringbone stacking which was often found in the crystal of benzobisthiazole derivatives. The polymer PCBTZ-TT with RAHBs showed deeper HOMO/LUMO energy level (about 0.2 eV) than reference polymer. The PCBTZ-TT demonstrated the hole mobility of 0.96 cm(2)center dot V-1 center dot s(-1) in field-effect transistor devices and achieved power conversion efficiency of 13.6% in solar cell devices with Y6 as acceptor without any additive.

Automated summary

In this study, a benzobisthiazole polymer with resonance-assisted hydrogen bonds (RAHBs) was synthesized for applications in organic field-effect transistors and polymer solar cells. The polymer exhibited deeper HOMO/LUMO energy levels and demonstrated good hole mobility and power conversion efficiency in device measurements.