Fullerenes have formed an integral part of high performance organic solar cells over the last 20 years, however their inherent limitations in terms of synthetic flexibility, cost and stability have acted as a motivation to develop replacements; the so-called non-fullerene electron acceptors. A rapid evolution of such materials has taken place over the last few years, yielding a number of promising candidates that can exceed the device performance of fullerenes and provide opportunities to improve upon the stability and processability of organic solar cells. In this review we explore the structure-property relationships of a library of non-fullerene acceptors, highlighting the important chemical modifications that have led to progress in the field and provide an outlook for future innovations in electron acceptors for use in organic photovoltaics.

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With chlorinated solvents unlikely to be permitted for use in solution-processed organic solar cells in industry, there must be a focus on developing non-chlorinated solvent systems. Here we report high efficiency devices utilising a low-bandgap donor polymer (PffBT4T-2DT) and a nonfullerene acceptor (EH-IDTBR), from hydrocarbon solvents and without using additives. When mesitylene was used as the solvent, rather than chlorobenzene, an improved power conversion efficiency (11.1%) was achieved without the need for pre-or post-treatments. Despite altering the processing conditions to environmentally friendly solvents and room temperature coating, grazing incident X-ray measurements confirmed that active layers processed from hydrocarbon solvents retained the robust nano-morphology obtained with hot-processed chlorinated solvents. The main advantages of hydrocarbon solvent processed devices, besides the improved efficiencies, were the reproducibility and storage lifetime of devices. Mesitylene devices showed better reproducibility and shelf-life up to 4000h with PCE dropping by only 8% of its initial value.

The synthesis of a highly twisted chrysene derivative incorporating two electron deficient o‐carboranyl groups is reported. The molecule exhibits a complex, excitation‐dependent photoluminescence, including aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) with good quantum efficiency and an exceptionally long singlet excited state lifetime. Through a combination of detailed optical studies and theoretical calculations, the excited state species are identified, including an unusual excimer induced by the presence of o‐carborane. This is the first time that o‐carborane has been shown to induce excimer formation ab initio, as well as the first observation of excimer emission by a chrysene‐based small molecule in solution. Bis‐o‐carboranyl chrysene is thus an initial member of a new family of o‐carboranyl phenacenes exhibiting a novel architecture for highly‐efficient multi‐luminescent fluorophores.