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Water/Ethanol soluble p - Type conjugated polymers for the use in organic photovoltaics

Pan, Xun and Sharma, Anirudh and Kroon, Renee and Gedefaw, Desta and Elmas, Sait and Yin, Yanting and Andersson, Gunther G. and Lewis, David A. and Andersson, Mats R. (2020) Water/Ethanol soluble p - Type conjugated polymers for the use in organic photovoltaics. Frontiers in Materials, 7 (281). pp. 1-13. ISSN 2296-8016

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Abstract

We have developed two series of p-type conjugated polymers based on poly[2,3-bis-(3-octyloxyphenyl)quinoxaline-5,8-diyl-alt-thiophene-2,5-diyl] (TQ1) polymeric backbone utilizing polar pendant groups, i.e., tertiary amine and pyridine, to achieve switchable solubility in water and ethanol. By balancing the ratio between polar and non-polar side-groups, we could combine green-solvent processability with the manufacturing of functional photovoltaic devices. Due to the unavailability of water/alcohol soluble acceptors, the photovoltaic performance of these new polymers was evaluated using organic solvent by incorporating PC61BM. For water/alcohol soluble partial amine-based polymers, we achieve a maximum power conversion efficiency (PCE) of ∼0.8% whereas alcohol soluble partial pyridine-based polymers show enhanced PCE of ∼1.3% with inverted device structure. We propose that the enhancement in PCE is a result of the reduction in amino-group content and the lower basicity of pyridine, both of which decrease the interaction between functionalized polymers with the anode interface material and reduce the miscibility of the donor and acceptor. Further improvement of the photovoltaic performance, in particular the open-circuit voltage (Voc), was achieved by using an anode buffer layer to mitigate the unfavorable interaction of the amino/pyridine groups with the MoO3 electrode. Our work demonstrated the possibility of substituent modification for conjugated polymers using tertiary amine and pyridine groups to achieve water/alcohol soluble and functional donor materials.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: Q Science > QD Chemistry
Divisions: Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment (FSTE) > School of Biological and Chemical Sciences
Depositing User: Desta Gedefaw
Date Deposited: 08 Sep 2020 23:42
Last Modified: 08 Sep 2020 23:42
URI: http://repository.usp.ac.fj/id/eprint/12323
UNSPECIFIED

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