journal article·2025-04

20.6% Efficiency Organic Solar Cells Enabled by Incorporating a Lower Bandgap Guest Nonfullerene Acceptor Without Open‐Circuit Voltage Loss

Yuanyuan Jiang, Kerui Liu, Feng Liu, Guangliu Ran, Mengni Wang, Tao Zhang, Renjie Xu, Heng Liu, Wenkai Zhang, Zhixiang Wei, Yong Cui, Xinhui Lu, Jianhui Hou, Xiaozhang Zhu

Advanced Materials· Volume 37· Issue 17
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Abstract

Abstract Simultaneously mitigating both photovoltage and photocurrent losses is crucial for organic solar cells (OSCs) to approach the Shockley–Queisser limit of ideal efficiency. Incorporating a narrower bandgap nonfullerene acceptor (NFA) as a guest component into the host donor:NFA system broadens the absorption spectrum. However, this can also increase the nonradiative decay rate according to the energy‐gap law. In this work, ternary OSCs are constructed by combining a narrow bandgap AQx‐2F (as host NFA) with a lower bandgap eC9 (as guest NFA), significantly enhancing photocurrent generation without compromising photovoltage. The addition of eC9 acts as a crystallization inducer, extending the crystallization period and increasing the ordered packing distance. This leads to suppressed trap states, elevated dielectric constant, prolonged exciton lifetime, balanced hole/electron transport, and reduced recombination loss. Consequently, the optimized D18:AQx‐2F:eC9 ternary OSCs achieve a champion power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 20.6% with a high open‐circuit voltage of 0.937 V, a short‐circuit current density of 27.2 mA cm−2 and a fill factor of 80.8%, as validated by an independently certified PCE of 20.0%, establishing a new benchmark for bulk heterojunction OSCs. This work demonstrates an effective method to simultaneously mitigate photovoltage and photocurrent losses, paving the way for high‐performance OSCs.
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Research context

OpenAlex topics: Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics · Conducting polymers and applications · Perovskite Materials and Applications

SciVX discovery tags are terminology-based. OpenAlex topics are source-provided classifications.

Affiliations

Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences CAS Key Laboratory of Organic Solids and State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100190 China

School of Chemical Sciences University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing 100049 China

Future Organic Optoelectronics Research Center Global Institute of Future Technology Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU‐GIFT) Shanghai 200240 China

Department of Physics and Applied Optics Beijing Area Major Laboratory Center for Advanced Quantum Studies Beijing Normal University Beijing 100875 China

CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication National Center for Nanoscience and Technology Beijing 100190 China

Department of Physics The Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong 999077 China

Funding

National Key Research and Development Program of China · Innovative Research Group Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China · Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality

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