Multi-arm quinoxaline-based acceptors formed by π-conjugation extension for efficient organic solar cells

Manipulating the conjugated backbone of small molecule acceptors (SMAs) is of particular importance in developing efficient organic solar cells (OSCs). Recently, trimers and other multi-arm SMAs have been found to be able to provide more intermolecular interaction, demonstrating excellent molecular stacking and device performance. However, the synthesis of this type of SMA usually relies on tristin or polystin compounds. Instead, expanding multiple arms in the central cores of SMAs is relatively simple and not restricted by tin compounds. Based on the quinoxaline core, two kinds of multi-arm SMAs, FQx-IC and TQx-IC with 4 and 3 arms, have been developed in this work. Compared to FQx-IC, TQx-IC exhibits an ordered face-on molecular orientation, appropriate film-forming process, and more favorable phase separation morphology and balanced charge transport. When blended with the polymer donor D18, OSCs based on TQx-IC achieve a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 17.36%, which is superior to the device based on D18:FQx-IC (16.24%). In addition, using the ternary strategy of incorporating the TQx-IC into the D18:Y6 system, an excellent PCE of 18.82% is achieved. Therefore, this multi-arm molecular design strategy has great potential for regulating molecular stacking, absorption, and the corresponding device performance.