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The interface characteristic is a crucial factor determining the power conversion efficiency of organic solar cells (OSCs). In this work, our aim is to conduct a comparative study on the interface characteristics between the very famous non-fullerene acceptor, ITIC, and a fullerene acceptor, PC71BM by combining molecular dynamics simulations with density functional theory. Based on some typical interface models of the acceptor ITIC or PC71BM and the donor PBDB-T selected from MD simulation, besides the evaluation of charge separation/recombination rates, the relative positions of Frenkel exciton (FE) states and the charge transfer states along with their oscillator strengths are also employed to estimate the charge separation abilities. The results show that, when compared with those for the PBDB-T/PC71BM interface, the CT states are more easily formed for the PBDB-T/ITIC interface by either the electron transfer from the FE state or direct excitation, indicating the better charge separation ability of the former. Moreover, the estimation of the charge separation efficiency manifests that although these two types of interfaces have similar charge recombination rates, the PBDB-T/ITIC interface possesses the larger charge separation rates than those of the PBDB-T/PC71BM interface. Therefore, the better match between PBDB-T and ITIC together with a larger charge separation efficiency at the interface are considered to be the reasons for the prominent performance of ITIC in OSCs.

A series of polymer donor materials 1-5 based on diketopyrrolopyrrole and thiophene unit which have been widely used in organic solar cells (OSCs) were investigated based on quantum chemical calculations. The effect of fluorine and cyano substitutions in polymer donor materials was focused on. Based on the investigation on electronic structures and optical properties of the reported molecules 1 and 2 and the analysis on some parameters relevant to charge dissociation ability at donor/acceptor interface constituted by 1 and 2 with PC 61 BM such as intermolecular charge transfer and recombination, driving force and Coulombic bound energy, we explained why fluorine substitution can improve OPV efficiency through strengthening eletron-withdrawing ability from a theoretical perspective. Then we designed cyano-substituted polymers 3-5 with the aim of obtaining better photovoltaic donor materials. The results reveal that our attempt to design donor materials which can balance large open-circuit voltage (V oc ) and high short-circuit current (J sc ) in OSCs has worked out. It is worth noting that the substitutions of fluorine and cyano groups synergistically reduce energy gap and HOMO energy level of polymers 3 and 4. Moreover, 3/PC 61 BM and 4/PC 61 BM heterojunctions show over 10 7 and 10 4 times higher than 1/PC 61 BM on the ratios of intermolecular charge transfer and recombination rates (k inter-CT /k inter-CR ). Thus, our work here may provide an efficient strategy to design promising donor materials in OPVs and we hope it could be useful in the future experimental synthesis., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

A combined molecular dynamics (MD) and quantum chemical (QC) simulation method is utilized to investigate charge generation mechanism at TTF/TCNQ (tetrathiafulvalene/tetracyanoquinodimethane) heterojunction, which is a controversial donor/acceptor (D/A) interface for organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. The TTF/TCNQ complexes extracted from MD simulation are classified into parallel and herringbone packings. And then, the amounts of charge transferred from ground states to different excited states and the corresponding energies of charge transfer (CT) state are compared and analyzed using QC simulation. Moreover, the electron transfer/recombination rates for these interfacial configurations are also studied. From these data, we have elucidated the underlying reason why TTF/TCNQ heterojunction is inadaptable to OPV application. One main reason is that large |ΔG CT | (the absolute value of Gibbs free energy change of CT) forms a large energy barrier, limiting exciton dissociation at the TTF/TCNQ heterojunction, and small |ΔG CR | (the absolute value of Gibbs free energy change of charge recombination) performs the easy recombination to the ground state.

Two isostructural vanadium-based metal-organic polyhedra (denoted as VMOP-16 and VMOP-17) were synthesized by a solvothermal method, which are built from unprecedented {V 7 } isopolyoxometalate clusters and dicarboxylate ligands. To our knowledge, the {V 7 } second building unit is reported for the first time and features the highest nuclearity of vanadium-oxygen clusters compared with reported vanadium-based MOPs.

Unprecedented Anderson-like alkoxo-polyoxovanadate [V6O6(OCH3)9(μ6-SO4)(COO)3](2-) polyanions can serve as 3-connected second building units (SBUs) that assemble with dicarboxylate or tricarboxylate ligands to form a new family of metal organic tetrahedrons of V4E6 and V4F4 type (V = vertex, E = edge, and F = face). To our knowledge, this alkoxo-polyoxovanadate-based SBU is the first ever reported.

In the current work, a series of bithiopheneimide (BTI)-based D-A copolymers were investigated based on the reported PDTSBTI (1) to screen excellent molecules toward organic photovoltaic (OPV) donor materials. It is found that the PCE based on the proposed derivative 4, where the silicon atom is replaced with vinyl and cyano groups on the DTS unit, shows a 70 percent improvement by Scharber diagrams compared with its prototype 1. Then, the charge transfer dynamics of 1/PC71BM and 4/PC71BM were investigated, including the intermolecular charge transfer (inter-CT) and recombination (inter-CR) rates. The theoretical data demonstrate that the ratio kinter-CT/kinter-CR of 4/PC71BM heterojunction is about 1 × 10(5) times higher than that of 1/PC71BM. These results clearly reveal that the designed donor molecule 4 will be a promising candidate for high-performance OPV device. We expect that this work from electron processing at the D/A interface may provide a theoretical guideline for further optimization and design of organic copolymer donor materials.