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Single-junction organic solar cells with a power conversion efficiency of more than 20% - Nature.com

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Single-junction organic solar cells with a power conversion efficiency of more than 20% | Nature Energy

A high-performance ternary organic solar cell (OSC) is developed through rational design of a nonfullerene guest acceptor. The optimized single-junction OSC shows reduced photon and carrier losses, leading to a high power conversion efficiency of more than 20%.

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1.
Benduhn, J. et al. Intrinsic non-radiative voltage losses in fullerene-based organic solar cells. Nat. Energy 2, 17053 (2017). This paper reports that non-radiative recombination losses can be explained by the energy-gap law.
2.
Zhang, G. et al. Renewed prospects for organic photovoltaics. Chem. Rev. 122, 14180–14274 (2022). A review article that presents strategies for the molecular design of organic semiconductors and identifies challenges in current OSCs.
3.
Li, C. et al. Non-fullerene acceptors with branched side chains and improved molecular packing to exceed 18% efficiency in organic solar cells. Nat. Energy 6, 605–613 (2021). This paper reports the relationship between alkyl side chains and packing models of NFAs.
4.
Street, R. A., Davies, D., Khlyabich, P. P., Burkhart, B. & Thompson, B. C. Origin of the tunable open-circuit voltage in ternary blend bulk heterojunction organic solar cells. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 135, 986–989 (2013). This paper proposes the concept of an alloy acceptor in TOSCs.
5.
Zhou, Z. et al. High-efficiency small-molecule ternary solar cells with a hierarchical morphology enabled by synergizing fullerene and non-fullerene acceptors. Nat. Energy 3, 952–959 (2018). This paper proposes a hierarchical nanomorphology achieved by blending a fullerene and nonfullerene acceptor.

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This is a summary of: Jiang, Y. et al. Non-fullerene acceptor with asymmetric structure and phenyl-substituted alkyl side chain for 20.2% efficiency organic solar cells. Nat. Energy https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01557-z(2024).

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Single-junction organic solar cells with a power conversion efficiency of more than 20%. Nat Energy (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01558-y

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-024-01558-y

Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: solar

State of Play

Declining costs and government encouragement have resulted in a rapid increase in solar energy production in the United States over the past 10 years, although solar’s share remains small: 1.6 percent of all electricity generation in 2018. That rapid growth is projected to continue.

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