Short-axis substitution approach on ladder-type benzodithiophene-based electron acceptor toward highly efficient organic solar cells

Short-axis substitution, as an effective way to change the optical and electronic properties of the organic semiconductors for organic photovoltaics (OPVs), is a readily approach to modify non-fullerene acceptors, especially for the linear fused rings system. Here, two new fused-ring electron acceptors (CBT-IC and SBT-IC) were designed and developed by short-axis modification based on the dithienyl[1,2-b:4,5-b′]benzodithiophene (BDCPDT) system. Combined with a medium bandgap polymer donor J71, both of the OPV devices exhibit high power conversion efficiency (PCE) over 11%, and ~70% external quantum efficiencies. To better understand how this kind of substitution affects the BDCPDT based acceptors, a comparative analysis is also made with the the plain acceptor BDT-IC without this modification. We believe this work could disclose the great potential and the versatility of BDCPDT block and also enlighten other ladder-type series for further optimization.