Recent Progress in Organic Solar Cells: A Review on Materials from Acceptor to Donor

Abstract

In the last few decades, organic solar cells (OSCs) have drawn broad interest owing to their advantages such as being low cost, flexible, semitransparent, non-toxic, and ideal for roll-to-roll large-scale processing. Significant advances have been made in the field of OSCs containing high-performance active layer materials, electrodes, and interlayers, as well as novel device structures. Particularly, the innovation of active layer materials, including novel acceptors and donors, has contributed significantly to the power conversion efficiency (PCE) improvement in OSCs. In this review, high-performance acceptors, containing fullerene derivatives, small molecular, and polymeric non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs), are discussed in detail. Meanwhile, highly efficient donor materials designed for fullerene- and NFA-based OSCs are also presented. Additionally, motivated by the incessant developments of donor and acceptor materials, recent advances in the field of ternary and tandem OSCs are reviewed as well.

New Benzotriazole and Benzodithiophene-Based Conjugated Terpolymer Bearing a Fluorescein Derivative as Side-Group: In-Ternal Förster Resonance Energy Transfer to Improve Organic Solar Cells

“…π-Conjugated polymers (CPs) have been widely studied during the last decades due to the unique combination of optical and electronic properties, such as sunlight harvesting capability and charge carrier mobility, with those inherent to synthetic polymers, such as structural and functional versatility, solution processability, flexibility, and light weight [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. This set of properties makes them suitable for many commercial applications, such as organic solar cells (OSCs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), organic field-effect transistors (OFET), and sensors, among others [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ].…”

“…The power-conversion energy (PCE) of polymer-based bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) OSC devices has increased significantly in recent years, overcoming the 18% barrier [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 ]. This advance has been driven mainly by developing new high-performance materials (new donor-acceptor CPs and non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs)), different device structures (ternary and tandem solar cells), and innovation in manufacturing techniques [ 1 , 14 , 15 ]. However, challenges, such as device efficiency and stability, must be addressed to consolidate the technology in the solar market [ 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 ].…”

Enhanced Optical Confinement Enriching the Power Conversion Efficiency of Integrated 3D Grating Organic Solar Cell

“…Organic solar cells (OSCs) display the desirable features of low weight, semitransparent, non-toxic, low-cost and simple manufacturing processes, and flexibility [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. However, their main disadvantage is their low power conversion efficiency (PCE), reaching a record high of compared to with silicon technology [ 4 ].…”

“…Many complex materials for donors and acceptors have been introduced over the years; these new materials have improved optoelectronic characteristics, charge generation, and charge transport [ 3 ]. Currently, the next challenge is to find new ways to improve OSC efficiency and overcome the absorption barrier [ 27 ].…”

Organic semiconductors with increased dielectric constants

“…[61] In these devices the localised photogenerated excitons are transformed into CT excitons across a D-A interface due to energetically favourable electron transfer, made possible by the difference in the frontier molecular orbital energies of the materials used. Over 20 years of material design and device optimisation have lead to record high power conversion efficiencies above 15% in devices based on the bulk heterojunction architecture (BHJ) [62] where the active layer consists of a D-A blended film, [63,64] and above 20% in tandem solar cells. [65] Amongst these efforts, research into materials for single component organic photovoltaic (SCOPV) has remained on the sidelines.…”