Non-fullerene acceptors have recently attracted tremendous interest because of their potential as alternatives to fullerene derivatives in bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. However, the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) have lagged far behind those of the polymer/fullerene system, mainly because of the low fill factor (FF) and photocurrent. Here we report a novel perylene bisimide (PBI) acceptor, SdiPBI-Se, in which selenium atoms were introduced into the perylene core. With a well-established wide-band-gap polymer (PDBT-T1) as the donor, a high efficiency of 8.4% with an unprecedented high FF of 70.2% is achieved for solution-processed non-fullerene organic solar cells. Efficient photon absorption, high and balanced charge carrier mobility, and ultrafast charge generation processes in PDBT-T1:SdiPBI-Se films account for the high photovoltaic performance. Our results suggest that non-fullerene acceptors have enormous potential to rival or even surpass the performance of their fullerene counterparts.

A novel perylene bisimide (PBI) dimer-based acceptor material, SdiPBI-S, was developed. Conventional bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells based on SdiPBI-S and the wide-band-gap polymer PDBT-T1 show a high power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 7.16% with a high open-circuit voltage of 0.90 V, a high short-circuit current density of 11.98 mA/cm(2), and an impressive fill factor of 66.1%. Favorable phase separation and balanced carrier mobilites in the BHJ films account for the high photovoltaic performance. The results demonstrate that fine-tuning of PBI-based materials is a promising way to improve the PCEs of non-fullerene BHJ organic solar cells.