Proceedings of Online International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (OnlineHOPV20)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.onlinehopv.2020.018
Publication date: 22nd May 2020
The emergence of so-called non-fullerene electron acceptors (or NFAs) have delivered a step change in the power conversion efficiencies of single junction organic solar cells with >18% recently reported. The development of these materials has evolved rather empirically, and the task at hand is now to develop consistent structure property relationships to guide further rational molecular and architectural design. The NFAs appear in several ways to be quite different to the fullerene acceptors that were the mainstay n-type organic semiconductors for several decades. In particular, we have been studying their electro-optical properties and have found a number of surprising features relating to charge transfer state energetics, low finesse cavity effects, and charge generation and recombination [1,2]. In my talk I will present some of our new findings on NFAs and pose the question as to whether these materials require a ‘re-write of the electro-optical rulebook’ of organic solar cells.