Polymer Solar Cells: Bithiophene Imide and Benzodithiophene Copolymers for Efficient Inverted Polymer Solar Cells (Adv. Mater. 17/2012)

R. P. H. Chang, A. Facchetti, T. J. Marks, and co-workers synthesize bithiophene imide and benzodithiophene donor–acceptor polymer semiconductors for application in organic photovoltaic cells. Stable inverted solar cells are fabricated and achieve high power-con-version efficiencies of up to 5.5%, with open circuit voltages greater than 0.9 V, as a result of the low-lying HOMO levels of the polymers. This work, presented on page 2242, demonstrates that bithiophene imide is a promising building block for high-performance polymer donor materials for solar cell applications.