Issue 52, 2019

[2,2′-Bithiophene]-4,4′-dicarboxamide: a novel building block for semiconducting polymers

Abstract

A novel electron deficient building block [2,2′-bithiophene]-4,4′-dicarboxamide (BTDCA) was designed to lower the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy level of polythiophenes in order to achieve a higher open circuit voltage (Voc) and thus a higher power conversion efficiency in polymer solar cells (PSCs). BTDCA dibromo monomers were conveniently synthesized in four steps, and were used to prepare three thiophene-based D-A polymers, P(BTDCA66-BT) (66BT), P(BTDCA44-BT) (44BT) and P(BTDCA44-TT) (44TT). All the polymers exhibited unipolar hole transport properties, exhibiting mobilities in the range of ∼10−4 to 10−2 cm2 V−1 s−1 with the highest hole mobility of up to 1.43 × 10−2 cm2 V−1 s−1 achieved for 44BT in bottom-gate bottom-contact organic thin film transistors (OTFTs). In PSCs, these polymers achieved high Voc's of 0.81–0.87 V when PCBM or ITIC was used as acceptor. When 44TT was used as donor and ITIC was used as acceptor, a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of up to 4.5% was obtained, a significant improvement when compared with the poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT):ITIC devices, which showed the highest PCE of merely 0.92%.

Graphical abstract: [2,2′-Bithiophene]-4,4′-dicarboxamide: a novel building block for semiconducting polymers

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
30 Aug 2019
Accepted
19 Sep 2019
First published
25 Sep 2019
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

RSC Adv., 2019,9, 30496-30502

[2,2′-Bithiophene]-4,4′-dicarboxamide: a novel building block for semiconducting polymers

X. Zhou, Z. Zhang, A. D. Hendsbee, J. H. L. Ngai, P. Kumar, S. Ye, D. S. Seferos and Y. Li, RSC Adv., 2019, 9, 30496 DOI: 10.1039/C9RA06909G

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