Molecular engineering is significantly
important for developing
electron donor and acceptor materials of active layers in organic
photovoltaics (OPVs). The OPVs based on halogenated donors frequently
produced high power conversion efficiencies. Here, based upon density
functional theory calculations with optimally tuned range separation
parameters and solid polarization effects, we studied the effects
of donor halogenation on molecular geometries, electronic structures,
excitation, and spectroscopic properties for F
n
ZnPc (n = 0, 4, 8, 16) and Cl
n
SubPc (n = 0, 6) monomers and the
complexes with C60 as well as the photoinduced direct charge
transfer (CT), exciton dissociation (ED), and charge recombination
(CR) processes that were described by rate constants calculated using
Marcus theory. The tiny differences of the molecular orbital energy
gap, excitation, and spectroscopic properties of F
n
ZnPc (n = 0, 4, 8, 16) and Cl
n
SubPc (n = 0, 6) monomers suggest
that halogenation cannot effectively tune the electronic and optical
gap but the significant decrease of molecular orbital energies support
the idea that halogenation has a remarkable influence on the energy
level alignment at heterojunction interfaces. The halogenation also
enhances intermolecular binding energies between C60 and
donors and increases the CT excitation energies of donor/C60 complexes, which are favorable for improving open circuit voltage.
Furthermore, for F
n
ZnPc/C60 (n = 0, 4, 8, 16) and SubPc/C60 (n = 0, 6) complexes, the CR rates dramatically decrease
(several orders) with increasing number of halogen atoms (except for
F16ZnPc/C60), meaning suppression of CR processes
by halogenation. As for the special case of F16ZnPc/C60, it underlines the importance of fluorination degree in
molecular design of donor materials. This study provides a theoretical
understanding of the halogenation effects of donors in OPVs and may
be helpful in molecular design for electron donor materials.