An unfused-ring acceptor with high side-chain economy enabling 11.17% as-cast organic solar cells

Side-chain engineering on nonfullerene acceptors (NFAs) is crucial for modulating their solubility and crystallinity as well as packing behaviours in active layers to pursue high-performance organic solar cells (OSCs). High weight ratios of side chains are generally used by NFAs for the desired device efficiencies. Side-chain economy has seldom been discussed despite increased cost and difficulties in synthesis when optimizing the molecular design. Herein, we introduce 7H-dibenzo[c,g]carbazole (DCB) as an electron-donating core to design unfused-ring acceptors (UFAs) with a dramatically low weight ratio of side chains. DCB-4F has thus been designed and compared with the carbazole cored analogue (CB-4F). The unique conformation of the DCB core endows DCB-4F with higher solubility (8.2 mg mL^-1 in chloroform) compared to CB-4F (2.2 mg mL^-1) when using the same side chains. Featuring a lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) level of -3.86 eV and an optical bandgap of 1.55 eV, the DCB-4F film exhibits an absorption profile (maximum 667 nm) complementary to polymer donor PM6. The PM6:DCB-4F as-cast OSCs deliver a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 9.56% with a high open-circuit voltage (V_OC) of 1.00 V. By adding 10 wt% PC₇₁BM into the casting solutions, a greatly improved PCE of 11.17% is readily achieved, which is one of the highest PCEs for as-cast single-junction UFA-based devices. The PM6:DCB-4F based blends show homogeneous nano-fiberous morphology and higher hydrophobicity. The design of conformation-tuned NFAs using sterically hindered DCB-like cores is promising to achieve highly efficient as-cast OSCs.