Suppress energy loss to boost power conversion efficiency of organic photovoltaics with linear side chains modulation

The high energy loss (E_loss) in organic solar cells (OSCs) is being the one of major problem, which limit the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of OSCs. In this work, we designed and synthesized three perylene diimide (PDI)-based Acceptor’-Donor-Acceptor-Donor- Acceptor’ (A′-DAD-A′) small molecules namely anti-PDFC-Cx (C8, C10, and C12) by changing the length of linear chains on IDT cores to investigate how the length of linear side chain affects E_loss and the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of OSCs. The optical energy bandgap and stacking mode for three anti-PDFC-Cx (C8, C10, and C12) remain the same, which were not influenced by the different lengths of side chains. Increasing the length of side chains on IDT cores from C8 to C10 and C12 would improve the PCE of PM6: anti-PDFC-Cx based devices from 11.52% to 12.43% and 12.27%, particularly the V_oc increasing from 0.98 V of anti-PDFC-C8 and 1.00 V of anti-PDFC-C10 to 1.02 V of anti-PDFC-C12. E_loss analysis indicated the value of E_loss reduced as the length increases from C8, to C12. These results demonstate linear side chain engineer is an effective method to reduce E_loss and realize high PCE on the bases of not modulating the stacking mode of acceptor.