Low Band Gap Polymers for Roll-to-Roll Coated Organic Photovoltaics – Design, Synthesis and Characterization

In this paper we present the design and synthesis of 25 new low band gap polymers. The polymers were characterized by UV-vis spectroscopy which showed optical band gaps of 2.0–0.9 eV. The polymers which were soluble enough were applied in organic photovoltaics, both small area devices with a spin coated active layer and in large area modules where all layers including the active layer were either roll-to-roll coated or printed. These experiments showed that the design of polymers compatible with roll-toroll coating is not straightforward and that there are various issues such as donor/acceptor fitting within the polymer, side chains to ensure solubility and HOMO/LUMO level alignment with the acceptor (e.g. [60]PCBM) to take into consideration.