Light-harvesting fullerenes for organic solar cells ^*

¹ Laboratoire Chimie Ingénierie Moléculaire et Matériaux d'Angers, Groupe Synthèse Organique et Matériaux Fonctionnels, UMR-CNRS 6200, 2 Bd Lavoisier, 49045 Angers, France
² Laboratoire Propriétés Optiques des Matériaux et Applications, PPF “Cellules Solaires Photovoltaïques Plastiques”, UMR-CNRS 6136, 2 Bd Lavoisier, 49045 Angers, France
³ Molecular Photonics Group, Van't Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, Universiteit Van Amsterdam, Nieuwe Achtergracht 166, 1018 WV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Corresponding author: pietrick.hudhomme@univ-angers.fr

Received: 25 July 2006
Revised: 13 October 2006
Accepted: 17 October 2006
Published online: 10 January 2007

Abstract

Novel dyads containing [60]fullerene–perylenediimide units were developed as light-harvesting acceptors for the preparation of efficient solar cells. The antenna was grafted onto C₆₀ with the aim to improve the absorption spectrum of materials used in bulk-heterojunction devices. Electrochemical and photophysical studies of these dyads in solution have revealed that there was no significant ground-state electronic interaction between the covalently bonded PDI and fullerene moieties. Steady-state fluorescence experiments evidenced an effective photoinduced energy transfer from the PDI moiety to C₆₀. The potential use of these light-harvesting fullerenes in organic solar cells was estimated with their incorporation in bulk-heterojunctions using poly(3-hexylthiophene) as the conjugated -donor polymer.