A New Diazabenzo[k]fluoranthene-Based D-A Conjugated Polymer Donor for Efficient Organic Solar Cells

The development of wide-bandgap polymer donors having complementary absorption and compatible energy levels with near-infrared (NIR) absorbing nonfullerene acceptors is highly important for realizing high-performance organic solar cells (OSCs). Herein, a new thiophene-fused diazabenzo[k]fluoranthene derivative is successfully synthesized as the electron-deficient unit to construct an efficient donor-acceptor (D-A) type alternating copolymer donor, namely, PABF-Cl, using the chlorinated benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene as the copolymerization unit. PABF-Cl exhibits a wide optical bandgap of 1.93 eV, a deep highest occupied molecular level of -5.36 eV, and efficient hole transport. As a result, OSCs with the best power conversion efficiency of 11.8% are successfully obtained by using PABF-Cl as the donor to blend with a NIR absorbing BTP-eC9 acceptor. This work provides a new design of electron-deficient unit for constructing high-performance D-A type polymer donors.

Automated summary

The development of wide-bandgap polymer donors with complementary absorption and compatible energy levels with NIR absorbing nonfullerene acceptors is crucial for achieving high-performance OSCs. In this study, a new thiophene-fused diazabenzo[k]fluoranthene derivative has been synthesized as the electron-deficient unit to construct an efficient D-A copolymer donor. The resulting OSCs, using this donor and a NIR absorbing acceptor, achieved a record power conversion efficiency of 11.8%.