The researchers, led by Mats R. Andersson from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, synthesised the polymer from a widely available stannyl thiophene and an easily synthesised bromoisoindigo monomer. These were then coupled together using a Stille coupling reaction. Overall this represents just 3 steps and was achieved with a high overall yield of 68%.
The polymer itself is a low band-gap polymer with a donor–acceptor structure, which is important for harvesting photons from sunlight. The team found that the polymer exhibited promising performance when used in a PSC device and expect to be able to further improve this by varying the indigo groups.
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