Functionalized oligothiophenes for application in organic solar cells

Abstract

The steady increase in power conversion efficiencies (PCE) of donor/acceptor bulk hetero-junction (BHJ) organic solar cells (OSC) over the recent years was made possible by systematic improvement of the donor materials with respect to optoelectronic and morphological properties. The main objective of this thesis was to synthesize and to characterize series of structurally related oligothiophene-based donor materials bearing electron-withdrawing terminal units. By correlation of thermal, optoelectronic, morphological and photovoltaic properties with the molecular structures, important structure-property-performance relationships were deduced.