Tethered Trimeric Small‐molecular Acceptors through Aromatic‐core Engineering for Highly Efficient and Thermally Stable Polymer Solar Cells

Abstract

Polymer solar cells (PSCs) rely on a blend of small molecular acceptors (SMAs) with polymer donors, where thermodynamic relaxation of SMAs poses critical concerns on operational stability. To tackle this issue, tethered SMAs, wherein multiple SMA-subunits are connected to the aromatic-core via flexible chains, are proposed. This design aims to an elevated glass transition temperature (T_g) for a dynamical control. However, attaining an elevated T_g value with additional SMA subunits introduces complexity to the molecular packing, posing a significant challenge in realizing both high stability and power conversion efficiency (PCE). In this study, we initiate isomer engineering on the benzene-carboxylate core and find that meta-positioned dimeric BDY-β exhibits more favorable molecular packing compared to its para-positioned counterpart, BDY-α. With this encouraging result, we expand our approach by introducing an additional SMA unit onto the aromatic core of BDY-β, maintaining a meta-position relative to each SMA unit location in the tethered acceptor. This systematic aromatic-core engineering results in a star-shaped C_3h-positioned molecular geometry. The supramolecular interactions of SMA units in the trimer contribute to enhancements in T_g value, crystallinity, and a red-shifted absorption compared to dimers. These characteristics result in a noteworthy increase in PCE to 18.24 %, coupled with a remarkable short-circuit current density of 27.06 mA cm^-2. More significantly, the trimer-based devices delivered an excellent thermal stability with over 95 % of their initial efficiency after 1200 h thermal degradation. Our findings underscore the promise and feasibility of tethered trimeric structures in achieving highly ordered aggregation behavior and increased T_g value in PSCs, simultaneously improving in device efficiency and thermal stability.