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Soluble perylene diimide-based copolymers with conjugated electronic push–pull substituent species
(piperidinyl and 4-tert-butylphenoxyl) on the 1,7-bay position of the perylene core and a 5,59-bis(4-
aminophenyl)-2-29-bifuryl as terminal group were synthesized and characterized in order to fabricate bulk
heterojunction solar cells. The introduction of such electronic push–pull substituents, which results in
relatively low-lying HOMO and high-lying LUMO energy levels, was achieved experimentally using
absorption and cyclic voltammetric measurements and also by density functional theory. Successfully fine-
Received 18th December 2012,
Accepted 31st January 2013
tuned HOMO and LUMO energy levels translated into a high open circuit voltage (Voc > 1.0 V) in fabricated
photovoltaic devices of type ITO/PEDOT:PSS/rr-P3HT:Perylene diimide-based copolymers/Ca/Al. However,
DOI: 10.1039/c3ra23383a
a relatively poor fill factor and efficiency may be observed due to the large degree of aggregation
www.rsc.org/advances domains, which are observed from atomic force microscopic studies.
5108 | RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 5108–5120 This journal is ß The Royal Society of Chemistry 2013