Bromo-substituted cibalackrot backbone, a versatile donor or acceptor main core for organic optoelectronic devices

Cibalackrot (Ci-I), one of the latest highly conjugated compound possessing bis-lactam structure, was investigated with respect to their brominated derivatives in order to determine their suitable substitution points for the syntheses of new class of small molecules for optoelectronic devices. 7,14-Bis(4-bromophenyl) (Ci-II) and 3,10-dibromo (Ci-III) derivatives of cibalackrot possess moderately narrow band gaps of 2.15 and 2.09 eV, respectively. Notably, Ci-III dye exhibits more red-shifted ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) absorption and fluorescence emission spectra as compared to that of Ci-II dye because Ci-III shows more prominent intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) complex than that of Ci-II dye. Electron mobilities of the order of 7.0 × 10−4 cm2/V and 3.1 × 10−4 cm2/V were measured using Ci-II and Ci-III as active layer, respectively. Charge transfer properties of the molecules were investigated in bulk heterojunction device configuration wherein Ci-III showed p-type behavior against n-type PCBM in photovoltaic device. Photovoltaic performance of Ci-III dye which was used as donor component is 20 times higher than that of the device in which this dye was used as acceptor.