Opto-electronic properties of non-fullerene fused-undecacyclic electron acceptors for organic solar cells

Abstract

Due to limitations of fullerene based acceptor molecules for solar cell applications, research is recently diverted to explore non-fullerene acceptor molecules. In this regard, four new A-D-A type fused ring electron acceptor molecules (M1, M2, M3 and M4) are evaluated for their opto-electronic properties for transparent organic solar cells. These molecules contain strong electron donor undecacyclic linked with four different acceptor moieties, 2-(3-ethly-5-methylene-4-oxothiazolidin-2-yluidene)malononitrile (M1), 2-(5,6-dicyano-2-methylene-3-oxo -2,3-dihydroindene-1-ylidene)malononitrile (M2), 2-(5-methylene-6-oxo-tetrahydro-1H-cyclopenta-thiophene-4(5H)-ylidene)malononitrile (M3), and 3-ethyl-5-methylene-2-thioxothiazolidin-4-one (M4). The electronic and optical properties of these molecules are compared with the reference molecule R, which is recently reported as excellent non-fullerene based acceptor molecule. Among all molecules, M2 exhibits the maximum red shift where absorption appears 893.5 nm with B3LYP/6-31++G(d,p) level of theory due to highly extended conjugation between electron withdrawing end-capped acceptor moieties. The calculated Open circuit voltage (Voc) of reference molecule R is 1.78 eV with donor polymer PTB7-Th while molecule M2 exhibits the Voc value of 1.86 eV.