Renewed Prospects for Organic Photovoltaics

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) have progressed steadily through three stages of photoactive materials development: (i) use of poly(3-hexylthiophene) and fullerene-based acceptors (FAs) for optimizing bulk heterojunctions; (ii) development of new donors to better match with FAs; (iii) development of non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs). This review provides an update of recent progress of OPV in the following aspects: developments of novel NFAs and donors, understanding of the structure–property relation...

⚡ This is an original paraphrased summary — not copied from the abstract. Full paper available at the source link below.

• 1 The development and application of NFAs with an A–D–A configuration (where A = acceptor and D = donor) has enabled devices to have efficient charge generation and small energy losses (Eloss < 0.6 eV), resulting in substantially higher power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) than FA-based devices.
• 2 The discovery of Y6-type acceptors (Y6 = 2,2′-((2Z,2′Z)-((12,13-bis(2-ethylhexyl)-3,9-diundecyl-12,13-dihydro--thiadiazolo[3,4-e]-thieno[2″,3″:4′,5′]thieno-[2′,3′:4,5]pyrrolo-[3,2-g]thieno-[2′,3′:4,5]thieno-[3,2-b]indole-2,10-diyl)bis(methanylylidene))bis(5,6-difluoro-3-oxo-2,3-dihydro-1H-indene-2,1-diylidene))dimalononitrile) with an A–DA′ D–A configuration has further propelled the PCEs to go beyond 15% due to smaller Eloss values (∼0.5 eV) and higher external quantum efficiencies.
• 3 Subsequently, the PCEs of Y6-series single-junction devices have increased to >19% and may soon approach 20%.

This work deepens our understanding of the fundamental laws governing the universe, from subatomic particles to cosmic structures.

This summary is based on publicly available metadata and abstract. For the full research paper, visit the original source: