Donor–acceptor molecules with small chain extension have been synthesized and used as active material in organic solar cells. The effect of fusion of a phenyl group on the end dicyanovinylene acceptor is discussed.

Two acetylene-bridged molecules, built by grafting phthalimides on thienoisoindigo (TII) and diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP) blocks, have been synthesized, characterized and evaluated as electron acceptor materials in air-processed inverted organic solar cells. Once blended with poly(3-hexylthiophene), power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of ca. 0.4% and 3.3% were achieved for TII and DPP based devices, respectively. To the best of our knowledge these PCEs (i) rank amongst the highest reported so far for diketopyrrolopyrrole based acceptors and (ii) make this contribution the very first example of thienoisoindigo based materials used as non-fullerene electron acceptors.