Homojunction single material organic solar cells (HOSCs) based on small donor-acceptor molecules represent the ultimate stage of simplification of OSCs. While single-material OSCs based on double-cable polymers or fullerene-based dyads...

Four acceptor–donor–acceptor (A–D–A)-type molecules bearing indacenodithiophene as donating central core and various end-capping acceptor units have been designed and synthesised as n-type materials suitable for organic solar cells (OSCs). The studied optical and electrochemical properties supported by theoretical calculations revealed that the nature and the strength of the terminal groups exert a decisive influence on the polymer bulk-heterojunction OSC performance.

Serendipitous synthesis of a novel naphtho[2,3-b]thiophene derivative. Detailed investigation of the structure and properties as well as a possible mechanism for its formation.

The synthesis of some novel donor-acceptor and acceptor-donor-acceptor systems containing a 2,2′-bi[3,2-b]thienothiophene donor block and various electron-accepting units is described alongside their photophysical properties studied using electrochemistry, optical spectroscopy and theoretical calculations. The obtained results show that the energy levels can be modulated by changing the strength of the acceptor unit. Among the three investigated end-groups, 1,1-dicyanomethylene-3-indanone exhibited the largest bathochromic shift and the lowest band gap suggesting the strongest electron-withdrawing character. Moreover, the emissive properties of the investigated systems vary greatly with the nature of the terminal group and are generally lower compared to their precursor aldehyde derivatives.