An efficient non-fullerene acceptor based on central and peripheral naphthalene diimides

Through the coupling of central and terminal naphthalene diimide functionalities, a unique non-fullerene electron acceptor, coded as N10, was designed, synthesized, characterized and applied in solution-processable bulk-heterojunction devices. The target N10 displayed good solubility, excellent thermal stability and energy levels complementing those of the conventional donor polymer poly(3-hexyl thiophene) (P3HT). An excellent power conversion efficiency of 7.65% was obtained in simple BHJ devices (P3HT : N10 1 : 1.2), which is the highest observed so far for NDI core-based non-fullerene acceptors.