Improved All-Polymer Solar Cell Performance of n-Type Naphthalene Diimide–Bithiophene P(NDI2OD-T2) Copolymer by Incorporation of Perylene Diimide as Coacceptor

Abstract

Naphthalene diimide–bithiophene P(NDI2OD-T2) is a well-known donor–acceptor polymer, previously explored as n-type material in all-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) and organic field effect transistor (OFETs) applications. The optical, bulk, electrochemical, and semiconducting properties of P(NDI2OD-T2) polymer were tuned via random incorporation of perylene diimide (PDI) as coacceptor with naphthalene diimide (NDI). Three random copolymers containing 2,2′-bithiophene as donor unit and varying compositions of naphthalene diimide (NDI) and perylene diimide (xPDI, x = 15, 30, and 50 mol % of PDI) as two mixed acceptors were synthesized by Stille coupling copolymerization. Proton NMR spectra recorded in CDCl3 showed that the π–π stacking induced aggregation among the naphthalene units could be successfully disrupted by the random incorporation of bulky PDI units. The newly synthesized random copolymers were investigated as electron acceptors in BHJ all-PSCs, and their performance was compared with P(NDI2OD-T2) ...