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Abstract To improve the efficacy of organic solar cells (OSCs), novel small acceptor molecules (CTD1–CTD7) were designed by modification at the terminal acceptors of reference compound CTR. The optoelectronic properties of the investigated compounds (CTD1–CTD7) were accomplished by employing density functional theory (DFT) in combination with time-dependent density functional theory (TD-DFT). The M06 functional along with a 6-311G(d,p) basis set was utilized for calculating various parameters such as: frontier molecular orbitals (FMO), absorption maxima (λ max), binding energy (E b), transition density matrix (TDM), density of states (DOS), and open circuit voltage (V oc ) of entitled chromophores. A red shift in the absorption spectra of all designed chromophores (CTD1–CTD7) was observed as compared to CTR, accompanied by low excitation energy. Particularly, CTD4 was characterized by the highest λ max value of 685.791 nm and the lowest transition energy value of 1.801 eV which might be ascribed to the robust electron-withdrawing end-capped acceptor group. The observed reduced binding energy (Eb) was linked to an elevated rate of exciton dissociation and substantial charge transfer from central core in HOMO towards terminal acceptors in LUMO. These results were further supported by the outcomes from TDM and DOS analyses. Among all entitled chromophores, CTD4 exhibited bathochromic shift (685.791 nm), minimum HOMO/LUMO band gap of 2.347 eV with greater CT. Thus, it can be concluded that by employing molecular engineering with efficient acceptor moieties, the efficiency of photovoltaic materials could be improved.