Robust nonfullerene solar cells approaching unity external quantum efficiency enabled by suppression of geminate recombination
Type
ArticleAuthors
Baran, Derya
Gasparini, Nicola

Wadsworth, Andrew

Tan, Ching Hong
Wehbe, Nimer
Song, Xin

Hamid, Zeinab
Zhang, Weimin
Neophytou, Marios
Kirchartz, Thomas
Brabec, Christoph J.

Durrant, James R.

McCulloch, Iain

KAUST Department
Chemical Science ProgramKAUST Solar Center (KSC)
Material Science and Engineering Program
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Surface Science
Date
2018-05-25Online Publication Date
2018-05-25Print Publication Date
2018-12Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/627982
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Nonfullerene solar cells have increased their efficiencies up to 13%, yet quantum efficiencies are still limited to 80%. Here we report efficient nonfullerene solar cells with quantum efficiencies approaching unity. This is achieved with overlapping absorption bands of donor and acceptor that increases the photon absorption strength in the range from about 570 to 700 nm, thus, almost all incident photons are absorbed in the active layer. The charges generated are found to dissociate with negligible geminate recombination losses resulting in a short-circuit current density of 20 mA cm-2 along with open-circuit voltages >1 V, which is remarkable for a 1.6 eV bandgap system. Most importantly, the unique nano-morphology of the donor:acceptor blend results in a substantially improved stability under illumination. Understanding the efficient charge separation in nonfullerene acceptors can pave the way to robust and recombination-free organic solar cells.Citation
Baran D, Gasparini N, Wadsworth A, Tan CH, Wehbe N, et al. (2018) Robust nonfullerene solar cells approaching unity external quantum efficiency enabled by suppression of geminate recombination. Nature Communications 9. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04502-3.Sponsors
D.B. thanks the Helmholtz Association and Julich Forschungszentrum for financial support via Helmholtz Postdoctoral Fellowship. T.K. acknowledges continuous support from Uwe Rau. A.W. and I.M. thanks EC FP7 Project SC2 (610115), EC FP7 Project ArtESun (604397), and EPSRC Projects EP/G037515/1, EP/M005143/1, T.K. acknowledges support from the DFG (grant KI-1571/2-1).Publisher
Springer NatureJournal
Nature CommunicationsAdditional Links
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04502-3ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1038/s41467-018-04502-3
Scopus Count
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04502-3