Scientists in China have developed a 3D donor for organic photovoltaics based on a spiro-fluorene molecule, which exhibited a power conversion efficiency of 4.82%.
Traditional 1D small molecule donors had only reached an efficiency of 1.69%. Small molecule donors have many advantages over conjugated polymer donors: high solubility allowing for high purification, good reproducibly and high charge-carrier mobility (because of its ordered, crystalline nature).
Donors with a 3D structure, including small molecular and dendritic macromolecular structures, have been expected to start a completely new self-assembly approach and more stable morphologies by increasing the dimension of the donor molecules.
Read the ChemComm ‘HOT’ article:
Spiro-fluorene based 3D donor towards efficient organic photovoltaics
Shuying Ma , Yingying Fu , Debin Ni , Jian Mao , Zhiyuan Xie and Guoli Tu
Chem. Commun., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2CC36301A
