Polymerizable C70 derivatives with acrylate functionality for efficient and stable solar cells

Fullerene-based organic solar cells are generally suffering from severe microstructure evolution occurring in their bulk heterojunction active layers and thus are extremely stable. To address it, four polymerizable C70 fullerene derivatives, [6,6]-phenyl-C71-ethyl acrylate (PC71EA), [6,6]-phenyl-C71-propyl acrylate (PC71PrA), [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyl acrylate (PC71BA), and [6,6]-phenyl-C71-pentyl acrylate (PC71PeA), have been designed, synthesized, and investigated. These fullerene compounds have a molecular structure, shape and size very like the conventional C70 fullerene acceptor, [6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PC71BM), and have been found no different in their light absorption, redox potentials, and frontier orbital energy levels. Using these fullerene acrylates individually as acceptor and poly(3-hexylthiophene) as donor, organic solar cells have been fabricated and gave optimal efficiencies ranging from 3.32% to 4.16%, comparable to PC71BM-based reference cells (4.06%). Owing to their acrylate functionality, these fullerene derivatives can turn into insoluble upon heating, and thus endow their solar cell devices much better thermostability than PC71BM-based reference cells. The best one, coming from PC71PeA devices, reported an optimal efficiency of 4.16%, and maintained 91.7% efficiency after heat treatment at 150 °C for 35 h. As a sharp contrast, the PC71BM reference cell dropped its optimal efficiency from 4.06% to 0.48% only after 5 h heat treatment. X-ray diffraction, optical and atomic force microscopy, and space-charge-limited current method have been carried out to understand active layer structure, morphology, and charge mobility change during heat treatment.