Side-Chain Isomerization on an n-type Organic Semiconductor ITIC Acceptor Makes 11.77% High Efficiency Polymer Solar Cells

Low bandgap n-type organic semiconductor (n-OS) ITIC has attracted great attention for the application as an acceptor with medium bandgap p-type conjugated polymer as donor in nonfullerene polymer solar cells (PSCs) because of its attractive photovoltaic performance. Here we report a modification on the molecular structure of ITIC by side-chain isomerization with meta-alkyl-phenyl substitution, m-ITIC, to further improve its photovoltaic performance. In a comparison with its isomeric counterpart ITIC with para-alkyl-phenyl substitution, m-ITIC shows a higher film absorption coefficient, a larger crystalline coherence, and higher electron mobility. These inherent advantages of m-ITIC resulted in a higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 11.77% for the nonfullerene PSCs with m-ITIC as acceptor and a medium bandgap polymer J61 as donor, which is significantly improved over that (10.57%) of the corresponding devices with ITIC as acceptor. To the best of our knowledge, the PCE of 11.77% is one of the highest values reported in the literature to date for nonfullerene PSCs. More importantly, the m-ITIC-based device shows less thickness-dependent photovoltaic behavior than ITIC-based devices in the active-layer thickness range of 80-360 nm, which is beneficial for large area device fabrication. These results indicate that m-ITIC is a promising low bandgap n-OS for the application as an acceptor in PSCs, and the side-chain isomerization could be an easy and convenient way to further improve the photovoltaic performance of the donor and acceptor materials for high efficiency PSCs.