TY - JOUR A1 - Li, Hongguang A1 - Babu, Sukumaran Santhosh A1 - Turner, Sarah T. A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Hollamby, Martin J. A1 - Tomohito, Seki A1 - Yagai, Shiki A1 - deguchi, Yonekazu A1 - Möhwald, Helmuth A1 - Nakanishi, Takashi T1 - Alkylated-C60 based soft materials: regulation of self-assembly and optoelectronic properties by chain branching N2 - Derivatization of fullerene (C60) with branched aliphatic chains softens C60-based materials and enables the formation of thermotropic liquid crystals and room temperature nonvolatile liquids. This work demonstrates that by carefully tuning parameters such as type, number and substituent position of the branched chains, liquid crystalline C60 materials with mesophase temperatures suited for photovoltaic cell fabrication and room temperature nonvolatile liquid fullerenes with tunable viscosity can be obtained. In particular, compound 1, with branched chains, exhibits a smectic liquid crystalline phase extending from 84°C to room temperature. Analysis of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells with a ca. 100 nm active layer of compound 1 and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as an electron acceptor and an electron donor, respectively, reveals an improved performance (power conversion efficiency, PCE: 1.6 ñ 0.1%) in comparison with another compound, 10 (PCE: 0.5 ñ 0.1%). The latter, in contrast to 1, carries linear aliphatic chains and thus forms a highly ordered solid lamellar phase at room temperature. The solar cell performance of 1 blended with P3HT approaches that of PCBM/P3HT for the same active layer thickness. This indicates that C60 derivatives bearing branched tails are a promising class of electron acceptors in soft (flexible) photovoltaic devices. Y1 - 2013 UR - http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlepdf/2013/tc/c3tc00066d U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/C3TC00066D ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Li, Hongguang A1 - Babu, Sukumaran Santhosh A1 - Turner, Sarah T. A1 - Neher, Dieter A1 - Hollamby, Martin J. A1 - Seki, Tomohiro A1 - Yagai, Shiki A1 - Deguchi, Yonekazu A1 - Möhwald, Helmuth A1 - Nakanishi, Takashi T1 - Alkylated-C-60 based soft materials regulation of self-assembly and optoelectronic properties by chain branching JF - Journal of materials chemistry : C, Materials for optical and electronic devices N2 - Derivatization of fullerene (C-60) with branched aliphatic chains softens C-60-based materials and enables the formation of thermotropic liquid crystals and room temperature nonvolatile liquids. This work demonstrates that by carefully tuning parameters such as type, number and substituent position of the branched chains, liquid crystalline C-60 materials with mesophase temperatures suited for photovoltaic cell fabrication and room temperature nonvolatile liquid fullerenes with tunable viscosity can be obtained. In particular, compound 1, with branched chains, exhibits a smectic liquid crystalline phase extending from 84 degrees C to room temperature. Analysis of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells with a ca. 100 nm active layer of compound 1 and poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) as an electron acceptor and an electron donor, respectively, reveals an improved performance (power conversion efficiency, PCE: 1.6 + 0.1%) in comparison with another compound, 10 (PCE: 0.5 + 0.1%). The latter, in contrast to 1, carries linear aliphatic chains and thus forms a highly ordered solid lamellar phase at room temperature. The solar cell performance of 1 blended with P3HT approaches that of PCBM/P3HT for the same active layer thickness. This indicates that C-60 derivatives bearing branched tails are a promising class of electron acceptors in soft (flexible) photovoltaic devices. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/c3tc00066d SN - 2050-7526 VL - 1 IS - 10 SP - 1943 EP - 1951 PB - Royal Society of Chemistry CY - Cambridge ER -