SL 14

ANTHRACENE- AND THIOPHENE-CONTAINING POLY(p-PHENYLENE-ETHYNYLENE)/POLY(p-PHENYLENE-VINYLENE)S: TOWARDS OPTIMIZED STRUCTURES FOR PHOTOVOLTAIC APPLICATIONS

D.A. M. Egbe^a, A. Wild^a, U.S. Schubert^a

^aLaboratory of Macromolecular Chemistry and Nanoscience, Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), P.O.Box 513, 5600 MB Eindhoven, The Netherlands, and Dutch Polymer Institute (DPI), John. F. Kennedylaan 2, 5612 AB Eindhoven, The Netherlands. D.A.Egbe@tue.nl and u.s.schubert@tue.nl

Introducing acetylene units within PPV backbone has provided new types of conjugated systems, denoted PPE-PPVs, showing outstanding optoelectronic properties. This class of compounds has successfully been used either as donor or acceptor components in solar cell devices.

Minimizing the detrimental insulating and shielding effects of the solubilising alkyl and/or alkoxy side chains is of great relevance towards the design of polymeric materials for high performance solar cell devices. Examples of improvement of photovoltaic parameters by tuning the length of side chains¹ and newly synthesized optimized structures of anthracence- as well as thiophene-containing PPE-PPVs shall be subject of our presentation.

The new structures (E_g^opt between 1.8 and 2.0 eV) bear side chains which are presumed to guarantee an optimal interfacial contact and with either PC₆₁BM or PC₁₇BM in heterojunction solar cell devices. Futhermore, they offer the possibility to study the effect of the aromatic rings (anthracence or thiophene) within the polymeric backbone on the photophysical and photovoltaic properties.

1. Egbe, D. A. M.; Nguyen, L. H.; Schmidtke, K.; Wild, A.; Sieber, C.; Guenes, S.; Sariciftci, N. S. J. Polym. Sci. Part A: Polym. Chem. 2007,45, 1619.