Application of benzodithiophene based A-D-A structured materials in efficient perovskite solar cells and organic solar cells

In this work, we have designed and synthesized a novel molecular material, BDT-C1, in which the core unit, benzodithiophene (BDT), was functionalized by thiophene (TP) and benzo-[c][1,2,5]-thiadiazole (BTZ) derivatives to generate extended pi-conjugation. BDT-C1 shows high hole mobility and high conductivity in its pristine form, in combination with appropriate energy level alignment with respect to [CH3NH3]PbI3 and PC70BM, qualifying the material as a good candidate for application both in perovskite solar cells (PSCs) as dopant-free hole transport material (HTM) and in OSCs as donor material. The champion PSCs based on BDT-C1 show an average conversion efficiency (PCE) of 13.4% (scan forward: 13.9%; scan backward: PCE=12.9%, scan rate: 10 mV/s). Although the average efficiency obtained is slightly lower than that of reference devices based on the well-known doped HTM Spiro-OMeTAD (13.7%), the BDT-C1 based devices exhibit better stability. Moreover, BDT-C1 as a donor material in OSCs also shows good performance in combination with PC70BM as acceptor material, and an efficiency of 6.1% was obtained. The present results demonstrate that BDT-C1 works well as both donor material in OSCs as well as dopant-free HTMs for efficient PSCs. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.