Abstract
Two A-A-D-A-A-type molecules (BCNDTS and BDCDTS), where two terminal electron-withdrawing cyano or dicyanovinylene moieties are connected to a central dithienosilole core through another electron-accepting 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole block, have been synthesized, characterized, and employed as electron donors for small molecule organic solar cells. Vacuum-deposited bilayer and planar mixed heterojunction devices based on BCNDTS and fullerene acceptors (C 60 or C 70 ) exhibited decent power conversion efficiencies of 2.3% and 3.7%, respectively. © 2011 American Chemical Society.