10.1016/j.tet.2012.02.080
The research investigates the design and synthesis of thiophene-substituted fulleropyrrolidine derivatives as acceptor molecules in thin film organic solar cells, using poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as the donor polymer. The study found that these derivatives, particularly 1-(2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethyl)-2-(2-thiophen-2-yl)fulleropyrrolidine, showed higher power conversion efficiency (PCE) compared to the commonly used [C60]-PCBM under the same conditions. The highest PCE achieved was 2.99%. The research also highlighted that the open-circuit voltage (Voc) of devices using these derivatives was higher than that of [C60]-PCBM, attributed to the electron-donating property of thiophene. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that using an electrode lacking PEDOT:PSS was crucial for achieving good PCE with these fulleropyrrolidine derivatives. The findings suggest that these thiophene-substituted fulleropyrrolidines have potential for improving the efficiency of organic solar cells and could lead to the development of more efficient donor polymers in the future.