Theoretical studies of photovoltaic properties of five new silol dithiophene based D2-A-D1-A-D2 donors |
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Authors: | Yunjie Xiang Suoping Peng Shaohui Zheng |
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Affiliation: | School of Materials and Energy, Chongqing Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Technologies of Clean Energies, Southwest University, Chongqing, China |
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Abstract: | Organic solar cell of silol dithiophene based D2-A-D1-A-D2/PC71BM (D: donor part; A: acceptor part; 1 and 2 denote different units) possesses promising power conversion efficiency. Researchers have studied D2-A-D1-A-D2 molecules carefully, including the effects of the different number of terminal thiophenes, the different central moiety (D1), and the length of the alkyl chain. However, there are few investigations, especially theoretical studies, on the influences of different A (acceptor) units on the properties of D2-A-D1-A-D2 molecule. In the present work, we have designed and modeled five new D2-A-D1-A-D2 (D2 = bithiophene and D1 = silol dithiophene) donors by changing A units (A = diketopyrrolopyrrole, naphtho[1,2-c:5,6-c′]bis[1,2,5]thiadiazole, 5-fluoro-2,1,3-benzoselenadiazole, benzobisthiadiazole, and thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole). We have applied density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT to predict their ground-state electronic structures and the UV–vis spectra, and the open circuit voltages (Vocs) of organic solar cells of D2-A-D1-A-D2/PC71BM. Based on the calculated results, we find that bithiophene thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole siloldithiophene (BTTS) (D2 = bithiophene, A = thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole, D1 = silol dithiophene) possesses the highest lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (−2.60 eV) and the lowest highest occupied molecular orbital (−5.33 eV) energies, and the strongest absorption in the visible region. Besides, the solar cell of BTTS/PC71BM has the highest Voc of 1.02 V. These results indicate that it may be a promising donor. In contrast, bithiophene benzobisthiadiazole siloldithiophene (BBBS) (A = benzobisthiadiazole) has low absorption strength in the visible region, which indicates that it may not be a suitable donor material. |
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Keywords: | D2-A-D1-A-D2 donor open circuit voltage small organic solar cell silol dithiophene |
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