Recent Advances in Organic Photovoltaic Materials Based on Thiazole-Containing Heterocycles.

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have achieved great progress driven by the rapid development of wide bandgap electron donors and narrow bandgap non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs). Among large amount of electron-accepting (A) building blocks, thiazole (Tz) and its derived fused heterocycles have been widely used to construct photovoltaic materials, especially conjugated polymers. Benefiting from the electron deficiency, rigidity, high planarity, and enhanced intra/intermolecular interactions of Tz-containing heterocycles, some related photovoltaic materials exhibit proper energy levels, optimized molecular aggregation and active layer morphology, leading to excellent photovoltaic performance. This review focused on the progress of Tz-based photovoltaic materials in the field of OSCs. Firstly, the Tz-based donor and acceptor photovoltaic materials are reviewed. Then, the materials based on promising Tz-containing heterocycles, mainly including thiazolo[5,4-d]thiazole (TzTz), benzo[1,2-d:4,5-d']bis(thiazole) (BBTz), benzo[d]thiazole (BTz) are summarized and discussed. In addition, the new emerging Tz-fused structures and their application in OSCs are introduced. Finally, the perspectives and outlooks for the further development of the Tz-containing heterocycles-based photovoltaic materials are proposed. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.