Fully Locked Conjugated Backbones in Simple‐Structured Polymer Donors Enabling High‐Performance Organic Solar Cells
Abstract
Abstract The development of wide‐bandgap polymer donors with cost‐effectiveness is pivotal for advancing the commercialization of organic solar cells (OSCs). However, these materials often suffer from conformational disorder and distortion, due to the presence of multiple rotatable σ‐bonds within their conjugated backbones. This study presents a series of simple‐structured polymer donors PBDT‐TBT‐X (X = H, F, and Cl), and systematically investigates the role of the type and strength of noncovalent conformational locks (NoCLs) in regulating backbone conformations, optoelectronic properties, pre‐aggregation behavior, and charge transport properties. Remarkably, the dual‐locking strategy involving S···O and S···Cl NoCLs achieves the most highly planar conformation with a fully locked backbone. As a result, the binary OSC device based on PBDT‐TBT‐Cl achieves a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 16.11%, much higher than its PBDT‐TBT‐H (6.35%) and PBDT‐TBT‐F (12.69%) counterparts. Notably, when utilized as a third component, PBDT‐TBT‐Cl enables a ternary OSC device with a PCE exceeding 20%. This work establishes a clear conformation−property−performance relationship, underscoring the critical role of fully locked conformations in designing high‐performance and cost‐effective polymer donors.
Article Details
Authors (16)
Gening Xie
College of Materials Science and Opto‐Electronic Technology, Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 101408 China
Jiarui Wang
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore
Jikai Lv
Sixuan Wang
YuQi Hou
Xubing Bai
Ziyang Han
College of Materials Science and Optoelectronic Technology, Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering
Xiaobin Gu
College of Materials Science and Optoelectronic Technology Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation, CAS Key Laboratory of Vacuum Physic
Congqi Li
College of Materials Science and Optoelectronic Technology, Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, CAS Center for Excellence in Topological Quantum Computation, CAS Key Laboratory of Vacuum Physics
Jiali Weng
Meng Zhang
Zheng Tang
Henan Key Laboratory of Polyoxometalate Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences
Qian Peng
State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Organic Chemistry and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Biosensing and Molecular Recognition College of Chemistry, Nankai University, 94 Weijin Road, Tianjin 300071, China
Yunhao Cai
Xin Zhang
Hui Huang
Center of Basic Molecular Science (CBMS), Department of Chemistry