Planar D-π-A Configured Dimethoxy Vinylbenzene Based Small Organic Molecule for Solution-Processed Bulk Heterojunction Organic Solar Cells

• Main Authors: Shabaz Alam, M. Shaheer Akhtar, Abdullah, Eun-Bi Kim, Hyung-Shik Shin, Sadia Ameen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-08-01
• Series: Applied Sciences
• Subjects: planar organic molecule; indanedione; dimethoxy vinylbenzene; organic solar cells; energy conversion
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/17/5743

A new and effective planar D-π-A configured small organic molecule (SOM) of 2-5-(3,5-dimethoxystyryl)thiophen-2-yl)methylene)-1H-indene-1,3(2H)-dione, abbreviated as DVB-T-ID, was synthesized using 1,3-indanedione acceptor and dimethoxy vinylbenzene donor units, connected through a thiophene π-spacer. The presence of a dimethoxy vinylbenzene unit and π-spacer in DVB-T-ID significantly improved the absorption behavior by displaying maximum absorbance at ~515 nm, and the reasonable band gap was estimated as ~2.06 eV. The electronic properties revealed that DVB-T-ID SOMs exhibited promising HOMO (−5.32 eV) and LUMO (−3.26 eV). The synthesized DVB-T-ID SOM was utilized as donor material for fabricating solution-processed bulk heterojunction organic solar cells (BHJ-OSCs) and showed a reasonable power conversion efficiency (PCE) of ~3.1% with DVB-T-ID:PC₆₁BM (1:2, <i>w</i>/<i>w</i>) active layer. The outcome of this work clearly reflects that synthesized DVB-T-ID based on 1,3-indanedione units is a promising absorber (donor) material for BHJ-OSCs.