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Benzosiloles and their π-extended derivatives are present in many important advanced materials due to their excellent physical properties. Especially, they have found many potential applications in the development of novel electronic materials such as OLEDs, semiconductors and solar cells. In this review, we have summarized several main approaches to construct (di)benzosilole derivatives and (benzo)siloles fused to aromatic five- and six-membered heterocycles.

A class of D-π-A compounds that can be used as dyes for applications in polymer solar cells has theoretically been designed and studied, on the basis of the dyes recently shown by experiment to have the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE), namely the poly[4,8-bis(5-(2-butylhexylthio)thiophen-2-yl)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b’]dithiophene-2,6-diyl-alt-TZNT] (PBDTS-TZNT) and poly[4,8-bis(4-fluoro-5-(2-butylhexylthio)thiophen-2-yl)benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b’]dithiophene-2,6-diyl-alt-TZNT] (PBDTSF-TZNT) substances. Electronic structure theory computations were carried out with density functional theory and time-dependent density functional theory methods in conjunction with the 6−311G (d, p) basis set. The PBDTS donor and the TZNT (naphtho[1,2-c:5,6-c]bis(2-octyl-[1,2,3]triazole)) acceptor components were established from the original substances upon replacement of long alkyl groups within the thiophene and azole rings with methyl groups. In particular, the effects of several π-spacers were investigated. The calculated results confirmed that dithieno[3,2-b:2′,3′-d] silole (DTS) acts as an excellent π-linker, even better than the thiophene bridge in the original substances in terms of well-known criteria. Indeed, a PBDTS-DTS-TZNT combination forms a D-π-A substance that has a flatter structure, more rigidity in going from the neutral to the cationic form, and a better conjugation than the original compounds. The highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO)-lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energy gap of such a D-π-A substance becomes smaller and its absorption spectrum is more intense and red-shifted, which enhances the intramolecular charge transfer and makes it a promising candidate to attain higher PCEs.

Structures and properties of some oligomer silole compounds have been studied using the Density Functional Theory (DFT) at B3LYP/6-31++G(d,p) levels. We have identified 32 stable geometries with some important properties such as band gap, UV-Vis spectroscopy. The band gaps of these siloles range from 2.0 to 3.0 eV, which can promise that the siloles are potential materials for semiconductor and luminescence.

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