Deep absorbing porphyrin small molecule for high performance organic solar cells with very low energy losses

We designed and synthesized the DPPEZnP-TEH molecule, with a porphyrin ring linked to two diketopyrrolopyrrole units by ethynylene bridges. The resulting material exhibits a very low energy band gap of 1.37 eV and a broad light absorption to 907 nm. An open-circuit voltage of 0.78 V was obtained in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells, showing a low energy loss of only 0.59 eV, which is the first report that small molecule solar cells show energy losses <0.6 eV. The optimized solar cells show remarkable external quantum efficiency, short circuit current, and power conversion efficiency up to 65%, 16.76 mA/cm², and 8.08%, respectively, which are the best values for BHJ solar cells with very low energy losses. Additionally, the morphology of DPPEZnP-TEH neat and blend films with PC₆₁BM was studied thoroughly by grazing incidence X-ray diffraction, resonant soft X-ray scattering, and transmission electron microscopy under different fabrication conditions.