TRIBOSC · Towards Radically Innovative Materials for Better and Sustainable Organic Solar Cells

Towards Radically Innovative Materials for Better and Sustainable Organic Solar Cells

To address the increasing energy demands, solar light harvesting is regarded as an environmentally benign green approach in the future energy market. Since its inception, the bulk heterojunction organic solar cells (BHJ-OSCs) displayed a huge leap in the power conversion efficiency from 1% to >17% recently. To date small molecule non-fullerene acceptors (SM-NFAs) have emerged as promising molecular frameworks in replacing electron-deficient fullerenes from the BHJs in OSCs. Unlike fullerenes, facile functionalization of these molecular architectures via low-cost synthetic routes affords excellent tunable optoelectronic and electrochemical properties. Thus the main problem being addressed in this proposal was to find an alternative renewable energy resource which can replenish at a much faster rate than it is being consumed. The submitted proposal aims at the design and synthesis of photofunctional donor-acceptor molecular architectures which can find potential applications in organic photovoltaic devices. As these kinds of structural motifs can be synthesised and purified in bulk in contrast to the inorganic semiconductors, they can serve as potential alternatives in addressing increasing energy demands. The overall objectives of the proposal includes (i) Design, synthesis of donor-acceptor-donor triad in which DPP (acceptor) was flanked between napthothiophene donors, (ii) To impart better solubility and thereby solution processability the alkyl side chains appended on the DPP subunit was varied, (iii) Solution-state photophysical and electrochemical measurements along with the theoretical calculations were performed on these novel organic materials, (iv) thin films of donor-acceptor-donor triads were obtained by spin coating them on to ITO or glass substrate from solvents such as dichloromethane, toluene, o-dichlorobenzene etc. The preliminary characterization of the above obtained organic thin film was done using optical and atomic force microscopy.The following training objectives were achieved by the applicant: (i) Design and synthesis of donor and acceptor precursor materials and novel donor-acceptor-donor triad, (ii) Morphological analyses of aggregates of donor-acceptor-donor triad, preparation of their thin films via spin-coatong and their characterization using optical and atomic force microscopy, (iii) Supervision of junior research scholars and PhD students, and (iv) Developing innovative ideas to build independent research career.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union