Fluorinated biselenophene-naphthalenediimide copolymers for efficient all-polymer solar cells

Biselenophene (BS) is generally considered as a promising building block for constructing organic semiconductors, and the 3-positions of selenophene in BS offer a great opportunity for further structural modification. Herein, a novel fluorinated biselenophene, 3,3'-difluoro-2,2'-biselenophene (BSF), was designed and synthesized successfully, and subsequently incorporated into a polymer backbone leading to the resulting polymer PNDIBSF. The polymer backbone planarity was significantly improved via the enhanced intramolecular noncovalent Se center dot center dot center dot F coulombic interactions. Meanwhile, the electronic structure of the polymer was effectively tuned by the high electronegativity of F atoms. All-polymer solar cells (all-PSCs) with J71 and PNDIBSF as polymer donor and acceptor achieved power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 5.20%. In comparsion, all-PSCs based on the non-fluorinated analogue polymer acceptor (PNDIBS) had low PCE of 2.74%. The results demonstrated that BSF is a promising building block for constructing polymer acceptor in all-PSCs, and the fluorination offers a sufficient strategy for further improving performance of selenophene-based polymer semiconductors.