Amorphous Thieno[3,2‑<i>b</i>]thiophene and Benzothiadiazole Based Copolymers for Organic Photovoltaics

Abstract

Three types of amorphous thienothiophene (TT)-benzothiadiazole (BT) based copolymers (<b>PFTTBT</b>) were synthesized by incorporating alkyl-substituted fluorene moieties as a third component in the polymer backbone. Their optical, electrochemical, morphological, and photovoltaic properties were examined by a comparison with those of a crystalline TT-BT derivative (<b>PTTBT14</b>). <b>PTTBT14</b> was reported to have a high hole mobility (0.26 cm²/(V s)) due to the pronounced interchain ordering but poor photovoltaic power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2.4–2.6% was reported due to excessively strong self-interactions with poor miscibility with fullerene structures. By incorporating fluorene units, the UV–vis spectra showed an increased bandgap (∼1.9 eV) with the disappearance of the packing-originated shoulder peak, and the valence band decreased compared to crystalline <b>PTTBT14</b>. The amorphous <b>PFTTBT</b> polymers showed substantially improved photovoltaic properties compared to <b>PTTBT14</b>, even though they showed poor hole mobility (∼10^–6 cm²/(V s)) and fill factor. The optimal devices were achieved by blending with excess PC₇₁BM (polymer:PC₇₁BM = 1:4 by weight), showing little improvement in the thermal and additive treatments. Under simulated solar illumination of AM 1.5 G, the best PCE of 6.6% was achieved for a <b>PFehTTBT</b>:PC₇₁BM device with an open-circuit voltage of 0.92 V, a short-circuit current of 15.1 mA/cm², and a fill factor of 0.48. These results suggest that it is useful to disrupt partially the interchain organizations of excessively crystalline polymers, enabling fine-control of intermolecular ordering and the morphological properties (i.e., miscibility with fullerene derivatives, etc.) to utilize the advantages of both crystalline and amorphous materials for further improving PCE of polymer solar cells