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Letter

Nature Materials 4, 37–41 (1 January 2005) | doi:10.1038/nmat1285

Controlled growth of a molecular bulk heterojunction photovoltaic cell

Fan Yang , Max Shtein & Stephen R. Forrest

The power conversion efficiency of organic photovoltaic cells has increased with the introduction of the donor–acceptor heterojunction that serves to dissociate strongly bound photogenerated excitons. Further efficiency increases have been achieved in both polymer and small-molecular-mass organic photovoltaic cells through the use of the bulk heterojunction (BHJ), where the distance an exciton must diffuse from its generation to its dissociation site is reduced in an interpenetrating network of the donor and acceptor materials.