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Advantages, challenges and molecular design of different material types used in organic solar cells

Nature Reviews Materials volume 9, pages 46–62 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The performance of organic solar cells (OSCs) has increased substantially over the past 10 years, owing to the development of various high-performance organic electron–acceptor and electron–donor materials, including polymers, small molecules and fullerenes, used in the photoactive layer. Depending on the combination of donor and acceptor materials, OSCs can be categorized into several types: polymer–fullerene, polymer–small molecule, all-polymer and all-small molecule, as well as multicomponent OSCs in which the photoactive layer comprises three or more photoactive components. This Review provides an overview of the historical development of the different material types used in the photoactive layer of solution-processed OSCs and compares their advantages and limitations. Effective molecular design strategies for each type of OSC are discussed and promising research directions highlighted, particularly those relevant to facilitating the industrial manufacturing of OSCs.

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Fig. 1: Typical organic solar cell device structure and representative photoactive materials used in organic solar cells.
Fig. 2: Timeline of the development of organic solar cell materials.

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Acknowledgements

H. Yan acknowledges support from a Tencent Xplorer Prize.

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Jicheng Yi, Guangye Zhang, Han Yu.

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  1. College of New Materials and New Energies, Shenzhen Technology University, Shenzhen, China

    Jicheng Yi & Guangye Zhang

  2. Department of Chemistry and Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong, China

    Jicheng Yi, Han Yu & He Yan

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Yi, J., Zhang, G., Yu, H. et al. Advantages, challenges and molecular design of different material types used in organic solar cells. Nat Rev Mater 9, 46–62 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-023-00618-1

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