The electron transport layer (ETL) plays a crucial role on the electron injection and extraction, resulting in balanced charge transporting and reducing the interfacial energy barrier. The interface compatibility and electrical contact via employing appropriate buffer layer at the surface of hydrophobic organic active layer and hydrophilic inorganic electrode are also essential for charge collections. Herein, an ether chain functionalized fullerene derivatives [6,6]-phenyl-C 61 -butyricacid-(3,5-bis(2-(2-ethoxyethoxy)-ethoxy)-phenyl)-methyl ester (C 60 -2EPM) was developed to modify zinc oxide (ZnO) in inverted structure organic solar cells (OSCs). The composited ZnO/C 60 -2EPM interface layer can help to overcome the low interface compatibility between ZnO and organic active layer. By introducing the C 60 -2EPM layer, the composited fullerene derivatives tune energy alignment and accelerated the electronic transfer, leading to increased photocurrent and power conversion efficiency (PCE) in the inverted OSCs. The PCE based on PTB7-Th: PC 71 BM was enhance from 8.11% on bare ZnO to 8.38% and 8.65% with increasing concentrations of 2.0 and 4.0 mg/mL, respectively. The fullerene derivatives C 60 -2EPM was also used as a third compound in P3HT:PC 61 BM blend to form ternary system, the devices with addition of C 60 -2EPM exhibited better values than the control device.
A novel kind of monodonor–bisacceptor (D–A–A) C60 charge-transfer complex was synthesized by the high-yielding [2+2] click chemistry reaction and the Prato reaction. Both electrochemical and UV-vis spectra studies were carried out and they proved that the side groups of the fullerene derivatives played an important role in the energy gaps, and also affected the third-order non-linear optical response. The experimental investigation on the third-order non-linear optical phenomena of the fullerene derivatives was measured using the Z-scan technique at different wavelengths (532 nm and 1064 nm). All the compounds exhibited very special non-linear optical properties when pumped by 21 ps pulses at 532 nm which suggested that there were two different types of reversible photo-isomerization. The optical-limiting performance has also been studied which proved indirectly the mechanism models of the reversible photo-isomerization.
The fullerenes that violate isolated pentagon rule (IPR) have unusual electronic properties resulting from their fused-pentagon structures. Numerous non-IPR fullerenes have now been captured by chlorination, affording opportunity to go insight into the properties involved in non-IPR fullerenes in the forms of chlorofullerenes (CFs). Here cyclic voltammetry (CV) is employed to probe the electrochemical properties of non-IPR #1809 C 60 Cl 8 in comparison with those of #271 C 50 Cl 10 . Differing from IPR-satisfying CFs such as C 60 Cl 8 and C 60 Cl 10 (referring to I
h -symmetric C 60 ), the two non-IPR CFs exhibit divergent electroactive polymerization characters. In addition, the electrocatalytic effect of ferrocene that is otherwise employed as internal reference has been shown in the CV process of CFs.