Effects of Backbone Planarity and Tightly Packed Alkyl Chains in the Donor-Acceptor Polymers for High Photostability

The photostability of donor-acceptor (D-A) polymers remains a critical issue despite recent improvements in the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of organic photovoltaic (OPV) cells. We report the synthesis of three highly photostable polymers (PDTBDT-BZ, PDTBDT-BZF, and PDTBDT-BZF₂) and their suitability for use in high-performance OPV cells. Under 1 sunlight of illumination in air for 10 h, these polymer films demonstrated remarkably high photostability compared to that of PTB7, a representative polymer in the OPV field. While the PDTBDT-BZ, PDTBDT-BZF, and PDTBDT-BZF₂ polymer films maintained 97, 90, and 96% photostability, respectively, a PTB7 film exhibited only 38% photostability under the same conditions. We ascribed the high photostability of the polymers to both the intrinsically photostable chemical moieties and the dense packing of alkyl side chains and planar backbone polymer chains, which prevents oxygen diffusion into the PDTBDT-BZ films. This work demonstrates the high photostability of planar PDTBDT-BZ series polymers composed of photostable DTBDT and BZ moieties and suggests a design rule to synthesize highly photostable photovoltaic materials.