Acene-based organic semiconductors for organic light-emitting diodes and perovskite solar cells

In this work, three novel acene-based organic semiconductors, including 2,7-bis(trimethylstannyl)naphtho[2,1-b:6,5-b']dithiophene (TPA-NADT-TPA), 4,4'-(anthracene-2,6-diyl)bis(N,N-bis(4-methoxyphenyl)aniline (TPA-ANR-TPA) and N²,N²,N⁶,N⁶-tetrakis(4-methoxyphenyl)anthracene-2,6-diamine (DPA-ANR-DPA), are designed and synthesized for use in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) and perovskite solar cells (PSCs). In OLEDs, the devices based on TPA-NADT-TPA, TPA-ANR-TPA and DPA-ANR-DPA showed pure blue, blue green, and green emission, respectively. Also, the maximum brightness of the devices with a turn-on voltage at 3.8 V reached 8682 cd m^-2 for TPA-NADT-TPA, 11180 cd m^-2 for TPA-ANR-TPA, and 18600 cd m^-2 for DPA-ANR-DPA respectively. These new materials are also employed as hole transporting materials (HTMs) in inverted PSCs, where they were used without additives. The inverted devices based on these HTMs achieved an overall efficiency of 10.27 % for TPA-NADT-TPA, 7.54 % for TPA-ANR-TPA, and 6.05 % for DPA-ANR-DPA under identical condition (AM 1.5G and 100 mW cm^-2). While the PSCs with TPA-NADT-TPA as HTM achieved the highest efficiency, the DPA-ANR-DPA based OLED devices showed the brightest emission and efficiency. Based on the obtained promising performance, it is clear that this molecular design presents a new research strategy to develop materials that can be used in multiple types of devices.