High-Performance Nonfullerene Organic Photovoltaic Cells Using a TPD-Based Wide Bandgap Donor Polymer

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) consisting of a wide bandgap polymer donor and a nonfullerene acceptor (NFA) have received attention because they can effectively overcome the weaknesses of efficiency and stability for fullerene-based OPVs. One of the NFAs, ITIC, shows an excellent power conversion efficiency, as well as controllable solubility, absorption, crystallinity, and energy level. Thus, high-efficiency OPVs could be achieved by developing polymer donors appropriate for use with ITIC-based OPVs. In this study, the synthesized polymer donor, PBDTT-8ttTPD, containing alkylthieno­[3,2-b]­thiophene as π-bridge and thieno­[3,4-c]­pyrrole-4,6­(5H)-dione (ttTPD) shows strong absorption with a sharp peak edge at around 700 nm. In addition, the high hole mobility and face-on oriented polymer structures in the blend films make ttTPD the best candidate for the donor in NFA-based OPVs. Notably, the molecular weight of the face-on preferred polymer donor is crucial for determining the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the NFA-based devices. A high molecular weight improves the π–π stacking ordering, absorption, and nanomorphology of the blend films, resulting in a dramatic PCE improvement from 5.76% to 11.05% compared with that of the fullerene-based OPV device (7.86%).