CC BY 4.0 · Organic Materials 2021; 03(02): 228-244
DOI: 10.1055/s-0041-1727234
Focus Issue: Peter Bäuerle 65th Birthday
Review

Single-Component Organic Solar Cells with Competitive Performance

Yakun He 
a   Institute of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Martensstrasse 7, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
b   Erlangen Graduate School in Advanced Optical Technologies (SAOT), Paul-Gordan-Straße 6, 91052 Erlangen, Germany
,
Ning Li 
a   Institute of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Martensstrasse 7, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
c   Helmholtz-Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg (HI ERN), Immerwahrstraße 2, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
,
Christoph J. Brabec 
a   Institute of Materials for Electronics and Energy Technology (i-MEET), Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Martensstrasse 7, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
c   Helmholtz-Institute Erlangen-Nürnberg (HI ERN), Immerwahrstraße 2, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
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Abstract

Organic semiconductors with chemically linked donor and acceptor units can realize charge carrier generation, dissociation and transport within one molecular architecture. These covalently bonded chemical structures enable single-component organic solar cells (SCOSCs) most recently to start showing specific advantages over binary or multi-component bulk heterojunction concepts due to simplified device fabrication and a dramatically improved microstructure stability. The organic semiconductors used in SCOSCs can be divided into polymeric materials, that is, double-cable polymers, di-block copolymers as well as donor–acceptor small molecules. The nature of donor and acceptor segments, the length and flexibility of the connecting linker and the resultant nanophase separation morphology are the levers which allow optimizing the photovoltaic performance of SCOSCs. While remaining at 1–2% for over a decade, efficiencies of SCOSCs have recently witnessed significant improvement to over 6% for several materials systems and to a record efficiency of 8.4%. In this mini-review, we summarize the recent progress in developing SCOSCs towards high efficiency and stability, and analyze the potential directions for pushing SCOSCs to the next efficiency milestone.

Key words

double-cable polymers - di-block copolymers - donor–acceptor small molecules - single-component organic solar cells - photovoltaic performance - device stability

Dedicated to Prof. Peter Bäuerle on the occasion of his 65th birthday.




Publication History

Received: 19 January 2021

Accepted: 24 February 2021

Article published online:
26 April 2021

© 2021. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, permitting unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction so long as the original work is properly cited. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Georg Thieme Verlag KG
Rüdigerstraße 14, 70469 Stuttgart, Germany

 

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