Unsubstituted Benzodithiophene-Based Conjugated Polymers for High-Performance Organic Field-Effect Transistors and Organic Solar Cells

Unsubstituted benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene (BDT) was used to construct a high-performance conjugated polymer with 5,6-difluoro-4,7-bis[4-(2-octyldodecyl)thiophene-2-yl]benzo[c][1,2,5] thiadiazole (DTFFBT), named PBDT-DTFFBT. The polymer shows the low-lying highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy level (-5.40 eV) and a broad absorption spectra with strong vibronic absorption peak. Pure polymer films exhibit good crystallinity and edge-on orientation, partially attributed to the BDT units without any side chains, and as a result, the corresponding thin-film transistor showed excellent hole mobility over 1 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1). Interestingly, a well-distributed nanofibrillar polymer aggregation with face-on orientation was obviously formed when blending with PC71BM, which was in favor of the charge transportation. Consequently, the bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells based on the blends showed high power conversion efficiency of 9.29% with large short-current density (14.56 mA cm(-2)) and high fill factor (0.751) without any process additives or thermal annealing.