**Abstract**

Two host materials based on CPDT as donors in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells were designed and investigated by means of DFT calculations. The first one (P-CPDTBT3) is a copolymer with D-A configuration and the second one (SM-CPDTDPP) is a D-π-A-π-D type small molecule. The investigated materials exhibited interesting structural properties with high planarity and rigidity originated from intra-molecular non-covalent interactions between the different building blocks. Thanks to their narrow band gaps, the optical absorption spectra have covered the main part of solar spectrum of interest. In addition, some general transport properties have been established. The transition density matrix (TDM) was used to get insight into the interaction of hole–electron localization and the electronic excitation processes. The photovoltaic parameters (FF, Voc) were calculated. The obtained results have been attempted to provide novel structure–property relationships for the rational design strategies of high-performance photovoltaic materials with power conversion efficiency of nearly 10%.

**Keywords:** cyclopentadithiophene, benzothiadiazole, diketopyrrolopyrrole, DFT, bulk heterojunction organic solar cells, TDM
