Novel Dimethylmethylene-Bridged Triphenylamine-PDI Acceptor for Bulk-Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells

A novel, star-shaped electron acceptor, DMTPA-PDI₃, derived from a planar dimethylmethylene-bridged triphenylamine core with three acetylene-linked perylene diimide (PDI) units is developed as a nonfullerene acceptor for organic solar cells (OSCs). DMTPA-PDI₃ manifests significantly reduced intramolecular twisting, enabling sufficient system-wide π-electron delocalization leading to broadened spectral absorption and raised lowest unoccupied molecular orbital level. As a result, higher and more balanced hole and electron transport properties are observed. Active layers for OSCs comprising DMTPA-PDI₃ acceptor and PBT7-Th donor exhibit suppressed intermolecular aggregation, giving rise to uniform nanophase network formation. These OSC devices have afforded respectably high power-conversion efficiency of about 5%.