Green Solvent-Processible N-H-Functionalized Perylene Diimide Materials for Scalable Organic Photovoltaics.

The growing demand for organic electronic devices warrants further development of the scalability and green solvent processibility of π-conjugated materials. Perylene diimide (PDI)-based materials have shown impressive performance as interlayers for electronic devices due to a low energy and high charge mobility in films. The next step in the development of these materials is the transition toward scalable production and the fabrication of devices under ambient conditions.

Watching Paint Dry: Operando Solvent Vapor Annealing of Organic Solar Cells.

The commercialization of organic solar cell (OSC) technology will require highly reproducible techniques for controlling the morphology of bulk heterojunction blends. Variable-pressure solvent vapor annealing (VP-SVA) is one method for postprocessing organic solar cells with high precision; it can prevent the overannealing of cells that plagues conventional SVA processes. To gain insight into the dynamics of the VP-SVA process, we carried out operando measurements on OSCs with correlated in situ grazing-incidence wide-angle X-ray scattering (GIWAXS) measurements.

Regioisomerically Pure 1,7-Dicyanoperylene Diimide Dimer for Charge Extraction from Donors with High Electron Affinities.

Perylene diimide (PDI) has attracted widespread interest as an inexpensive electron acceptor for photovoltaic applications; however, overcrystallization in the bulk heterojunction typically leads to low device performance. Recent work has addressed this issue by forming bay-linked PDI dimers and oligomers, where the steric bulk of adjacent PDI units forces the molecule to adopt a nonplanar structure. This disrupts the molecular packing and limits domain sizes in the bulk heterojunction.