Quantitative singlet fission in solution-processable dithienohexatrienes

Abstract

Singlet fission (SF) is a promising strategy to overcome thermalization losses and enhance the efficiency of single junction photovoltaics (PVs). The development of this field has been strongly material-limited, with a paucity of materials able to undergo SF. Rarer still are examples that can produce excitons of sufficient energy to be coupled to silicon PVs (>1.1 eV). Herein, we examine a series of a short-chain polyene, dithienohexatriene (DTH), with tailored material properties and triplet (T1) energy levels greater than 1.1 eV. We find that these highly soluble materials can be easily spin-cast to create thin films of high crystallinity that exhibit ultrafast singlet fission with near perfect triplet yields of up to 192%. We believe that these materials are the first solution-processable singlet fission materials with quantitative triplet formation and energy levels appropriate for use in conjunction with silicon PVs.

Metadata

Authors/Creators:

Fallon, K.J. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6241-6034
Sawhney, N.
Toolan, D.T.W. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3228-854X
Sharma, A.
Zeng, W. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1577-9021
Montanaro, S.
Leventis, A.
Dowland, S.
Millington, O. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6787-8553
Congrave, D.
Bond, A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1744-0489
Friend, R. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6565-6308
Rao, A. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4261-0766
Bronstein, H. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0293-8775

© 2022 The Authors. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Keywords:

Absorption; Materials; Nuclear fission; Photovoltaics; Thin films

Dates: