Synthesis and characterization of n-type conjugated copolymers bearing perylene diimide moieties

Three electron-deficient conjugated polymers based on perylene diimide (PDI) units, namely, poly(N,N′-didodecyl-3,4,9,10-perylene diimide-1,7-diyl)-alt-(9,9-dihexylfluorene-2,7-diyl)] (PPDIF), poly{(N,N′-didodecyl-3,4,9,10-perylene diimide-1,7-diyl)-alt-N-(2-ethylhexyl) carbazole-3, 6-diyl]} (PPDIC) and poly{(N,N′-didodecyl-3,4,9,10-perylene diimide-1,7-diyl)-co-N-(2-ethylhexyl) carbazole-3,6-diyl]-co-(9,9-dihexylfluorene-2,7-diyl)} (PPDICF) have been synthesized via Suzuki coupling reaction, and their chemical structures are confirmed by ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR and FT-IR. All these polymers show broad absorption bands in 250–700 nm, and their optical band gaps are calculated to be ~1.7 eV. Cyclic voltammetry results confirm that the objective macromolecules possess high electron affinity of ~3.9 eV. By employing poly-3-hexylthiophene (P3HT) as electron donor and PPDIC as electron acceptor, all polymer solar cells (aPSCs) with bulky heterojunction structure have been fabricated, preliminary results indicate they have one of the most highest open-circuit voltage (V _oc) (0.86 V) reported so far in aPSCs with PDI-based polymers as electron acceptor.