I Have a Research Support System

Monday morning, nine twenty.

Wei Xingsi rarely summoned Xu Qiu and Chen Wanqing to the office before the group meeting, holding a paper document that had just been printed out and smelled like ink in his hand, and said with a complicated expression:

"In a new "Nature" sub-journal, "Nature Materials", Xu Zhenghong and his research group at South China University developed a new type of ADA-type non-Fullerian derivative receptor, named IDTBR, and the device has the highest optoelectronic The conversion efficiency is over 10%, let’s see.”

Both Xu Qiu and Chen Wanqing were shocked.

Professor Xu Zhenghong is still very famous in the field of organic photovoltaics. Although he is not an academician, he is also a top Changjiang scholar. He is the earliest leader in the field of organic photovoltaics in China. His research group has three small bosses, dozens of graduate students, and There are many postdoctoral fellows, who are the kind of large research groups that are said to be able to pour water on AM, and have achieved remarkable scientific research results.

Now there is a big news without a sound, directly raising the upper limit of the efficiency of the non-fullerene system to 10%, which is close to 12% of the fullerene derivative system.

Xu Qiuxin said that last Monday, she asked her seniors not to set up FLAG indiscriminately, so as to be careful of misfortune coming out of her mouth.

'The publication of Xu Zhenghong's "Nature·Materials" article has the greatest impact on the senior sister's system. Originally, under the highest record of 6% in the ADA system, the senior sister has 5% efficiency. Posting an AM has a Eighty-nine percent probability. '

'Now the upper limit has changed to 10%, so the 5% is not so eye-catching. The probability of being able to send AM is directly cut to 40-50%. In addition, the senior sister's article writing level is relatively sloppy, and an additional 10% of success will be deducted. Even if the efficiency of her system can be increased from 5% to 6%, it can only increase the success rate by 20%. Adding up to 50% or 60%, it is far from as stable as before. . '

'Moreover, it is not ruled out that their group has other IDTBR derivative-related work on the way. If they are asked to publish a few articles on the ADA system with an efficiency of about 7%, 8%, and 9%, the advantage of the IDT-ICIN system will be smaller. '

'However, this article did not have a great impact on me. On the one hand, my system is PDI. Although it can be considered as a non-fullerene acceptor field, it and the ADA system belong to two subdivisions. Like the senior sister, I will be directly impacted; on the other hand, my efficiency is 8.4% after all, and it is not so far away from 10%. '

'Although it is a bit sudden, the fact has already happened, and we can only accept it. After all, the world does not revolve around a certain person. There are hundreds of researchers in the field of organic photovoltaics. What a breakthrough. '

‘The top priority is to find a way to minimize your losses, or to gain something from it. '

After thinking about it secretly, Xu Qiu and his senior sister looked through the documents in their hands together.

He has seen the efficiency data, "greater than 10%", all written directly on the title, "A planar non-fullerene acceptor is used in high-efficiency organic photovoltaic devices, and the photoelectric conversion efficiency is \u003e10%".

Efficiency aside, what Xu Qiu cared most about was the molecular structure. He turned to the second page of the paper, and the first picture was the molecular structure and the synthesis route.

The central D unit of IDT-BR is IDT, which is the same unit as the IDT-ICIN system of the senior sister. The A unit "BR" connected at both ends is composed of "B" and "R".

Among them, "B" refers to the BT unit, which is a common acceptor A unit in the field of organic photovoltaics. For example, the PCE11 material developed by Xu Qiu before, the main chain is composed of BT units and thiophene units;

And "R" refers to the commonly used raodanine end group of ADA receptors. This unit was first used by Xu Zhenghong's research group three or four years ago, and thus created the subdivision field of ADA type non-fullerene receptors. Later, they developed a series of ADA receptors based on Raodanine, and several research groups also began to follow suit to do some related derivative research, and the previous world record of 6% was set by Xu Zhenghong's group a year ago.

Generally speaking, this IDT-BR is not the ADA molecule in the traditional sense, but a variant developed by Xu Zhenghong’s group based on the original ADA molecular structure. Strictly speaking, it should be regarded as A1-A2-D-A2- A structure like A1, but the two A units "B" and "R" can be regarded as a whole, and that is the ADA molecule.

The text of the synthetic route is not written in detail, but several key steps are listed:

In the first step, the IDT unit reacts with n-butyllithium at low temperature, and then reacts with trimethyltin chloride to introduce trimethyltin units at both ends of the IDT to obtain a ditrimethyltin-substituted IDT unit. The reaction mechanism is similar The reaction of introducing aldehyde groups that Senior Sister Yu did before was just to use trimethyltin chloride on trimethyltin chloride instead of DMF to add aldehyde groups after the hydrogen extraction of n-butyllithium.

In the second step, the IDT unit substituted by ditrimethyltin reacts with the BT unit substituted by bromine and aldehyde groups to generate BT-IDT-BT units substituted by dialdehyde groups on both sides. The reaction type is Stille coupling reaction.

The third step is to react the product of the aldehyde group substitution reaction in the previous step with Raodanine to obtain the final R-BT-IDT-BT-R molecule, referred to as IDT-2BR, IDT-BR or IDTBR. The reaction in this step is the same as that of the senior sister The last step of IDT-ICIN is similar, the aldehyde group is converted into a carbon-carbon double bond and connected to the end group.

"It seems to be a common reaction, and it shouldn't be difficult for us to repeat it," Xu Qiu made a preliminary judgment and said to Chen Wanqing:

"You can also try this idea in the future, try inserting a new unit in the original ADA structure, they inserted the small-sized A unit BT, maybe other A units or even D units, such as simple thiophene units, can also be optimized material properties."

"Hmm..." Chen Wanqing thought for a moment and said, "This can be listed in the next optimization plan."

Chen Wanqing turned to Teacher Wei and asked, "Then what should I do with my current IDT-ICIN system?"

Wei Xingsi spread his hands, indicating that he was also very confused when he got the news, and he didn't make any mistakes, "I've already done this, let's sort out the articles first."

In fact, this article was not retrieved and downloaded by him on his own initiative, but was sent by a small boss of Xu Zhenghong's group. Generally, when a research group publishes such a big article, it will find people to actively promote it. On the one hand, it is with other people. "Share" their joy, and on the other hand tell others "come and quote our article".

Moreover, although the main journals of "Nature", "Science" and the major sub-journals of "Nature" are indeed influential, it is generally difficult for people to publish articles on them, especially in some less popular fields, which may be less than a year. You can only post a few articles on it.

Therefore, for other researchers, the frequency of reading these journals will not be very high, and it may take a long time to get the news of the publication of the article.

However, the top journals of materials and chemistry such as AM and JACS are different. Basically, relevant articles will be published in each issue, so you have to read each issue. Articles published in these journals will be more quickly accepted by other journals. researchers learned.

Wei Xingsi asked suddenly: "By the way, what is the efficiency now? Is there a chance to increase to 6%?"

"Currently it is 5.86%," Xu Qiu arranged for simulation experimenters in the simulation laboratory to optimize the senior sister's system, and then said: "It shouldn't be too difficult to get to 6%."

Wei Xingsi nodded, caught a glimpse of Chen Wanqing's depression, and said a rare word of comfort: "We can't interfere with what others are doing, just do our own job well, don't think too much."

"Hmm." Chen Wanqing responded in a low voice, her expression softened a lot.

Wei Xingsi glanced at the time, it was already early half past nine, he didn't bother Xu Qiu and Chen Wanqing, he went to 216 to summon others.

Xu Qiu sat with her senior sister and continued to read the text of the article.

Chen Wanqing suddenly pointed to a part of the article, and said in surprise, "Xu Qiu, isn't this your material, PCE11?"

Xu Qiu followed the senior sister's instructions, "It's really good, and the efficiency is not low, it's 9.5%."

He did not expect to see other people using his own developed material in a top journal like "Nature Materials", and he did not change the name of the material, and directly used his original name, which shows that his material has been obtained. recognized by peers.

Chen Wanqing analyzed: "It's been a long time since a major sub-journal of Nature has been published in the field of non-fullerenes. Juxtaposed with the other two star materials that have been famous for a long time, PCE10 and P3HT, it is estimated that your AM article will have a lot more citations, maybe it will take off, the whole high citations or something."

Xu Qiu asked suspiciously, "Can it really be this fierce?"

Chen Wanqing chuckled, "Who knows, I'll just guess casually."

The two spent a few minutes browsing through the text of the article.

The characterization methods used in the article are all conventional ones, and the main highlight is the IDTBR material itself.

The combination of IDTBR acceptor and PCE10 donor can not only achieve a photoelectric conversion efficiency of 10.2%, but also combine with other donors, the performance is still not bad, including PCE11 developed by Xu Qiu, and the traditional benchmark donor material P3HT, the efficiency of the former Reached 9.5%, which was 6.2%.

The two points of "high compatibility with a variety of donors" and "high efficiency in combination with low-cost P3HT donor materials" are the icing on the cake.

In addition, they also tested the air stability of the IDTBR system, exposed to the air for up to 1200 hours, the efficiency can still be maintained at about 80% of the initial value, while the traditional fullerene derivative system, under the same storage conditions, The device efficiency is almost zero, indicating the excellent device stability of the IDTBR system.

After initially reading this document, Xu Qiu has two harvests.

One is to consider inserting small structural units between the D/A units of ADA in the design of the molecular structure of the ADA type;

The other is to explore the device stability of the IDTBR system and whether it can be extended to other ADA systems, such as the IDT-ICIN system of the senior sister.

Not long after, Teacher Wei brought others to 218.