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Organic Electronics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/orgel
The effect of alkylthio substituents on the photovoltaic properties of
conjugated polymers
Yi Li
a
, Yuancong Zhong
a
, Huanxiang Jiang
b
, Thomas Rath
c
, Qian Wang
b
, Heike M.A. Ehmann
d
,
Gregor Trimmel
c
, Shuguang Wen
b,∗∗
, Yong Zhang
a,∗
, Renqiang Yang
b
a
Institute of Optoelectronic Materials and Technology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, 510631, China
b
CAS Key Laboratory of Bio-based Materials, Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266101, China
c
Institute for Chemistry and Technology of Materials (ICTM), NAWI Graz, Graz University of Technology, Stremayrgasse 9, 8010, Graz, Austria
d
Anton Paar GmbH, Graz, Austria
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Polymer solar cells
Alkylthio side chain
Non-covalent interaction
Conjugated polymer
Power conversion efficiency
ABSTRACT
Alkylthio groups are effectively utilized in molecule design to improve the performance of polymer solar cells
(PSCs). In this study, two conjugated polymers, P1 and P2, were designed and synthesized with alkyl and al-
kylthio side chains substituted on thiophene as π bridges, respectively. Owing to the twist of the backbone
induced by the steric hindrance of the hexyl side chains, polymer P1 shows a low power conversion efficiency
(PCE) of 2.83% in PSC devices with PC
71
BM as acceptor and a low hole mobility of 1.85 × 10
−5
cm
2
V
−1
s
−1
in
the blend film. In contrast to the steric hindrance of the alkyl side chain, the alkylthio side chain can form S⋯S
non-covalent interaction with an adjacent thiophene to maintain the molecular planarity and strengthen in-
termolecular interaction, which is designed in polymer P2 to improve the photovoltaic performance. As a result,
the P2-based devices exhibit a higher PCE of 6.15% with an open-circuit voltage (V
OC
) of 0.71 V, a short-circuit
current (J
SC
) of 14.55 mA cm
−2
and a fill factor (FF) of 59.5%. The hole mobility is also increased to
2.20 × 10
−4
cm
2
V
−1
s
−1
. Our results demonstrate that introducing S⋯S non-covalent interaction into con-
jugated polymers could be a useful strategy for building high performance photovoltaic materials.
1. Introduction
In the past few years, great attention has been paid to the devel-
opment of polymer solar cells (PSCs) owing to their merits such as light
weight, low cost and easy fabrication [1–9]. In the bulk-heterojunction
(BHJ) structure of PSCs, the photoactive layer, consisting of electron
donor and acceptor materials, is the key part of PSCs, which absorbs
photons, generates and dissociates excitons, and transfers charge-car-
ries [10]. The π bridge, as a connection between the donor and acceptor
moiety, has a significant effect on maintaining the molecular planarity
in D-A type conjugated polymers [11–14]. However, the modification
of the π bridge usually has the tendency to twist the polymer's back-
bone. Hence, a strategy to modify the π bridge while maintaining the
planarity of polymer's backbone is urgently needed.
The modification of the conjugated polymer's side chains is an ef-
fective strategy to tune solubility [15–17], absorption spectra [18,19]
and electronic energy levels of the conjugated polymers [20–24]. Al-
kylthio groups have shown a good effect on improving the efficiency of
PSCs [25–30]. In addition, the S atom has the ability to accept π elec-
trons from the p-orbital of the C=C double bond to its empty 3 d or-
bitals. Thus, alkylthio groups can lower the highest occupied molecular
orbital (HOMO) of polymer donors to enhance the open-circuit voltage
(V
oc
) of PSCs. For instance, Li et al. has introduced alkylthio sub-
stituents into thiophene side chains of the BDT unit, and demonstrated
that the introducing of an alkylthio side chain could broaden the ab-
sorption and down-shift the HOMO energy level of the low band gap
(LBG) 2D-conjunction polymers [31]. Hou et al. has developed a con-
jugated polymer with a dialkylthio-thienyl substituted benzodithio-
phene as donor moiety, the open-circuit voltage (V
OC
) of this polymer is
0.15 V higher than the alkyl-substituted counterpart and the power
conversion efficiency (PCE) is thus enhanced [32].
In order to obtain a good performance in PSCs, π-conjugated poly-
mers with good planarity leading to high charge carrier mobility are
essential. In general, there are two design strategies to obtain π-con-
jugated polymers with high planarity. One strategy is to connect
neighboring aromatic rings directly through covalent bonds, which
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orgel.2019.01.051
Received 13 May 2018; Received in revised form 26 November 2018; Accepted 30 January 2019
∗
Corresponding author.
∗∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: wensg@qibebt.ac.cn (S. Wen), zycq@scnu.edu.cn (Y. Zhang).
Organic Electronics 68 (2019) 50–55
Available online 31 January 2019
1566-1199/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
T