Non-innocent side-chains with dipole moments in organic solar cells improve charge separation

Providing sustainable energy is one of the biggest challenges nowadays. An attractive answer is the use of organic solar cells to capture solar energy. Recently a promising route to increase their efficiency has been suggested: developing new organic materials with a high dielectric constant. This solution focuses on lowering the coulomb attraction between electrons and holes, thereby increasing the yield of free charges. In here, we demonstrate from a theoretical point of view that incorporation of dipole moments in organic materials indeed lowers the coulomb attraction. A combination of molecular dynamics simulations for modelling the blend and ab initio quantum chemical calculations to study specific regions was performed. This approach gives predictive insight in the suitability of new materials for application in organic solar cells. In addition to all requirements that make conjugated polymers suitable for application in organic solar cells, this study demonstrates the importance of large dipole moments in polymer side-chains.