A polymer library enables the rapid identification of a highly scalable and efficient donor material for organic solar cells

The dramatic improvement of the PCE (power conversion efficiency) of organic photovoltaic devices in the past few years has been driven by the development of new polymer donor materials and non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs). In the design of such materials synthetic scalability is often not considered, and hence complicated synthetic protocols are typical for high-performing materials. Here we report an approach to readily introduce a variety of solubilizing groups into a benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole acceptor comonomer. This allowed for the ready preparation of a library of eleven donor polymers of varying side chains and comonomers, which facilitated a rapid screening of properties and photovoltaic device performance. Donor FO6-T emerged as the optimal material, exhibiting good solubility in chlorinated and non-chlorinated solvents and achieving 15.4% PCE with L8BO as the acceptor (15.2% with Y6) and good device stability. FO6-T was readily prepared on the gram scale, and synthetic complexity (SC) analysis highlighted FO6-T as an attractive donor polymer for potential large scale applications.

Automated summary

The dramatic improvement of the PCE of organic photovoltaic devices has been driven by the development of new polymer donor materials and non-fullerene acceptors. A new approach was reported to introduce various solubilizing groups into a benzo[c][1,2,5]thiadiazole acceptor comonomer, allowing for the preparation of a library of donor polymers for rapid screening of properties and performance. The donor polymer FO6-T emerged as the optimal material, exhibiting good solubility and achieving high PCE, making it suitable for large-scale applications.