Five 4,7-dithien-2-yl-2,1,3-benzothiadiazole （DTBT）-based conjugated copolymers with controlled molecular weight were synthesized to explore their optical, energy level and photovoltaic properties. By tuning the positions of hexyl side chains on DTBT unit, the DTBT- fluorene copolymers exhibited very different aggregation properties, leading to 60 nm bathochromic shift in their absorptions and the corresponding power conversion efficiencies （PCEs） value of photovoltaic cells varied from 0.38%, 0.69% to 2.47%. Different copolymerization units, fluorene, earbazole and phenothiazine were also investigated. The polymer based on phenothiazine exhib- ited lower PCE value due to much lower molecular weight owing to its poor solubility, although phenothiazine units were expected to be a better electron donor. Compared with the fluorene-based polymer, the carbazole-DTBT copolymer showed higher short circuit current density （Jsc） and PCE value due to its better intermolecular stacking,
Organic photovoltaic cells(OPVs) have attracted more and more attention due to its highly potential application to solve the energy crisis considering its advantages,such as low cost and ease of large area production.The power conversion efficiency(PCE) of OPVs has undergone a more than nine-fold increase from ～1.0% by Tang in 1986 to 9.2% in 2010 announced by Mitsubishi Chemical.The major challenges of obtaining high efficiency OPVs are the synthesis of new narrow band gap materials,controlling molecular arrangement,designing novel configuration cells for better photon harvesting in the active layer.In the article,we summarized the recent progress of novel narrow band gap photovoltaic materials and the effective methods to control the morphology of donor and acceptor in the blend films for high performance of OPVs.
WANG ZiXuanZHANG FuJunWANG JinXU XiaoWeiWANG JianLIU YangXU Zheng
