4
W. Chen et al. / Tetrahedron xxx (2014) 1e5
less obvious and the blend surface becomes rougher, suggesting
possible domain rearrangement.50,51 The presence of the fibre-like
structures may contribute to the improvement in the charge
transport,52 which eventually increase the device performance in
the thermally annealed device.
lower polaron signal than PCBM. This relative value indicates the
number of the generated excitons, which have undergone charge
separation into the acceptor side to be negative polarons.55 Thus,
from this relative value, it can be inferred that P3HT:BTOQC (1.0:0.6,
TA) may perform slightly worse than P3HT:PCBM (1.0:0.6, TA) and
it agrees with the performance result as discussed before.
The morphology of as-cast P3HT:PC61BM blend looks similar to
that of the P3HT:BTOQC. However, thermal annealing at 150 ꢀC
greatly enhanced the phase separation in the P3HT:PC61BM blend.
Consequently, needle-like PC61BM crystals (which are a few mi-
crons in length) appeared in the heat-treated blend, which is
common in PC61BM system. The lack of such structures in the heat-
treated P3HT:BTOQC blend may account for the improvement of
the device performance after thermally annealing. Nevertheless,
the lackness of the ability for the P3HT:BTOQC to phase separation
sufficiently could also limit its performance because the preferen-
tial interaction between BTOQC and P3HT molecules may interrupt
the self-organization of both donor and acceptor molecules and,
hence, lower the effectiveness of the charge transport in the device.
In the next section, the charge dynamics of the P3HT:BTOQC will be
discussed to further understand the interaction between the donor
and acceptor.
The analysis was extended further with the fs-TAS spectra at
near infrared (NIR) to probe the dynamics of the polarons, which
will elucidate the behaviour of the charge transfer process from
P3HT to the acceptor. The spectra at this range are shown in Fig. 6(a,
b) where the polaron signal is the long lived broad signal around
1000 nm. The first few picoseconds of the signal at this NIR range is
dominated by the exciton dynamics, which involves the exciton
recombination from P3HT domain, germinate pairs and non ger-
minate pairs, which will last around 100 ps.53 Thus, by subtracting
the pure contribution of exciton dynamics (1200 nm) from the
signal at 1000 nm, we can reveal the pure polaron dynamics, which
is a negative polaron in this NIR region.54
3. Conclusion
We have successfully synthesized a new thiadiazole-o-quino-
dimethane-C60 bisadducts (BTOQC), which have been explored as
an acceptor in P3HT-based PSCs. This material shows device per-
formance of 2.50% with a high Voc 0.74 V when the weight ratio of
P3HT:BTOQC is 1.0:0.6. Although the PCE is moderate due to the
phase separation, however, the benzo[2,1,3]thiadiazole is a good
motif for further introduction of various functional groups. Thus, it
may have great potential for further applications on optoelectronic
devices based on various
materials.
p-conjugated conducting organic
4. Experimental section
4.1. Materials
All chemicals were purchased from commercial sources Sig-
maeAldrich etc. and used without further purification and all sol-
vents were purified and freshly distilled prior to use.
4.2. General measurement and characterization
1H NMR and 13C NMR spectra were measured on Bruker DMX-
300 spectrometers. Chemical shifts of NMR are reported in parts
per million relative to the singlet of TMS at 0 ppm for 1H NMR
spectroscopy. Absorption spectra were taken on a SHIMADZU UV-
2501PC UVeVis spectrophotometer. Electrochemical cyclic vol-
tammetry (CV) was conducted on a CHI 660C Electrochemical
Workstation. In the CV measurement, a Pt disk was used as the
working electrode, Pt wire as the counter electrode, and Ag/Agþ
electrode (Satured KCl solution) as the reference electrode were
used in a mixed solution of o-dichlorobenzene: acetonitrile (5:1 v/
v) with 0.1
M
tetrabutylammonium hexafluorophosphate
(NBu4PF6) at 100 mV sꢁ1. The differential scanning calorimetry
(DSC) analysis of fullerene derivatives was performed under a ni-
trogen atmosphere on an Instrument TA Q-10 at heating rates of
10 ꢀC minꢁ1. Tapping-mode atomic force microscopy (AFM) mea-
surement was done with MFP-3D (Asylum Research). White light
pump probe measurement was done with custom built white light
pump probe (WLPP) setup. The pump laser used was generated
from TOPAS (Coherent, Inc.) with laser pulse of 100 fs, repetition
1 kHz. The probe laser was generated from a fundamental wave-
length of 800 nm (1 kHz) by a white light generation from a sap-
phire crystal with thickness of 2 mm.
Fig. 6. (a, b): fs-TAS (transient absorption spectra) at near infrared region of
P3HT:BTOQC (1.0:0.6, TA) and P3HT:PCBM (1.0:0.6, TA) blend sample for comparison
under the same sample preparation condition; (c, d): decay profile comparison for
pure polaron level between P3HT:BTOQC (1.0:0.6, TA) and P3HT:PCBM (1.0:0.6, TA) at
short time scale and raw signal at 1000 nm, respectively, with an insert at first two
picoseconds.
4.3. Synthesis of BTOQC
A
mixture of C60 (250 mg, 0.35 mmol,
1
equiv), 5,6-
240 mg,
bis(bromomethyl)-benzo[2,1,3]thiadiazole (P2,
0.75 mmol, 2.1 equiv to C60), potassium iodide (500 mg, 3.0 mmol,
4 equiv to bis(bromomethyl)-benzo[2,1,3]-thiadiazole), and 18-
crown-6 (790 mg, 3.0 mmol, 1 equiv to potassium iodide) was
dissolved in anhydrous o-dichlorobenzene at reflux temperature
for 48 h under an argon atmosphere in dark. After cooling to room
temperature, the solvent was removed under vacuum. Afterwards,
the solid was transferred into methanol (10 mLꢃ3), sonicated and
centrifuged. The residual solid was purified by taking chloroform as
the eluent through column chromatography on silica gel. The
The pure polaron signal is shown in Fig. 6c where the
P3HT:PCBM (1.0:0.6, TA) polaron signal has a longer rise time
(10 ps) as compared to the P3HT:BTOQC (1.0:0.6, TA) (4 ps). This
faster rise time may be attributed to the higher LUMO level of
BTOQC than PCBM as discussed in the previous section. At longer
lifetime (Fig. 6d), it can be observed that both P3HT:BTOQC (1.0:0.6,
TA) and P3HT:PCBM (1.0:0.6, TA) have relatively similar polaron
level and similar polaron lifetime where the BTOQC has a slightly