TY - JOUR
T1 - Polyfluorophenyl quinoxaline derived acceptors with long exciton diffusion length for efficient thin-film/thick-film organic solar cells
AU - Xiang, Kai
AU - Deng, Zihao
AU - Su, Wenyan
AU - Bai, Hairui
AU - Dong, Bitao
AU - Chen, Na
AU - Su, Ning
AU - Wu, Haotian
AU - Bi, Zhaozhao
AU - Liu, Han
AU - Li, Tengfei
AU - Shen, Yanan
AU - Wang, Ke
AU - Zhang, Dandan
AU - Sun, Rui
AU - Maqsood, Muhammad Hamza
AU - Li, Ping
AU - Yan, Lihe
AU - Lu, Guanghao
AU - Liu, Yuhang
AU - Wang, Jin Liang
AU - He, Feng
AU - Chen, Jianhua
AU - Ma, Wei
AU - Fan, Qunping
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2026.
PY - 2026/12
Y1 - 2026/12
N2 - Designing small-molecule acceptors (SMAs) with long exciton diffusion length (LD) and high electron mobility is vital for boosting power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells (OSCs). However, the limited LD of most advanced SMAs hinders their practical applications in thick-film OSCs. Herein, we develop four SMAs (named Yq-0F, Yq-2F, Yq-4F, and Yq-6F) with fluorine-free/fluorinated phenyl-substituted quinoxaline cores by manipulating the number of fluorine atom. Among them, polyfluorophenyl-substituted Yq-4F exhibits superior 3D network crystal framework and favourable intermolecular packing, leading to optimal blend morphology with polymer donor D18. Therefore, D18:Yq-4F system achieves improved carrier mobilities and suppressed charge recombination loss. Consequently, the D18:Yq-4F based binary OSCs provide a PCE of 18.30%, surpassing these ones based on D18:Yq-0F (11.27%), D18:Yq-2F (17.73%), and D18:Yq-6F (17.00%). When introducing Yq-4F as a guest into D18:L8-BO host to fabricate ternary OSCs, the PCE further increases to 20.77%, as the highest reported value among quinoxaline-derived SMAs. Moreover, ternary D18:Yq-4F:BTP-eC9 and D18:L8-BO:Yq-4F OSCs with ~500 nm active layer thickness offer impressive PCEs of >17%, ranking among the top values for thick-film devices with similar thickness. This work offers an effective SMA design strategy for opening a path towards efficient thin-film and thick-film OSCs simultaneously.
AB - Designing small-molecule acceptors (SMAs) with long exciton diffusion length (LD) and high electron mobility is vital for boosting power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells (OSCs). However, the limited LD of most advanced SMAs hinders their practical applications in thick-film OSCs. Herein, we develop four SMAs (named Yq-0F, Yq-2F, Yq-4F, and Yq-6F) with fluorine-free/fluorinated phenyl-substituted quinoxaline cores by manipulating the number of fluorine atom. Among them, polyfluorophenyl-substituted Yq-4F exhibits superior 3D network crystal framework and favourable intermolecular packing, leading to optimal blend morphology with polymer donor D18. Therefore, D18:Yq-4F system achieves improved carrier mobilities and suppressed charge recombination loss. Consequently, the D18:Yq-4F based binary OSCs provide a PCE of 18.30%, surpassing these ones based on D18:Yq-0F (11.27%), D18:Yq-2F (17.73%), and D18:Yq-6F (17.00%). When introducing Yq-4F as a guest into D18:L8-BO host to fabricate ternary OSCs, the PCE further increases to 20.77%, as the highest reported value among quinoxaline-derived SMAs. Moreover, ternary D18:Yq-4F:BTP-eC9 and D18:L8-BO:Yq-4F OSCs with ~500 nm active layer thickness offer impressive PCEs of >17%, ranking among the top values for thick-film devices with similar thickness. This work offers an effective SMA design strategy for opening a path towards efficient thin-film and thick-film OSCs simultaneously.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105041065252
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-026-71677-5
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-71677-5
M3 - Article
C2 - 41957351
AN - SCOPUS:105041065252
SN - 2041-1723
VL - 17
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
IS - 1
M1 - 5026
ER -