Triphenylamine/Tetracyanobutadiene-Based D-A-D π-Conjugated Systems as Molecular Donors for Organic Solar Cells

Thlophene-based D-A-D pi-conjugated systems containing triphenylamine end groups connected to a 1,1,4,4-tetracyanobuta-1,3-diene acceptor by oligothiophene chains of variable length have been synthesized. These compounds show Interesting light-harvesting properties and low-lying HOMO levels. Preliminary results on bilayer heterojunction solar cells with C-60 as acceptor show power conversion efficiency higher than 1.0%.