Organic Photovoltaics Utilizing Small-Molecule Donors and Y-Series Nonfullerene Acceptors

The emerging Y-series nonfullerene acceptors (Y-NFA) has prompted the rapid progress of power conversion efficiency (PCE) of all-small-molecule organic solar cells (ASM-OSCs) from around 12% to 17%. The excellent PCE improvement benefits from not only the outstanding properties of Y-series acceptors but also the successful development of small-molecule donors. The short-circuit current density, fill factor, and nonradiative recombination are all optimized to the unprecedented values, providing a scenery that is obviously different from the ITIC-series based ASM-OSCs. In this review, OSCs utilizing small-molecule donors and Y-NFA are summarized and classified in order to provide an up-to-date development overview and give an insight on structure-property correlation. Then, the characteristics of bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) formation of ASM-OSCs are discussed and compared with that of polymer-based OSCs. Finally, the challenges and outlook on designing ground-breaking small-molecule donor and forming an ideal BHJ morphology are discussed.

Automated summary

The emergence of Y-series nonfullerene acceptors has significantly improved the power conversion efficiency of all-small-molecule organic solar cells from 12% to 17%. This improvement is attributed to the exceptional properties of the Y-series acceptors and the successful development of small-molecule donors. The optimization of short-circuit current density, fill factor, and nonradiative recombination has led to unprecedented values, distinguishing these ASM-OSCs from ITIC-series based ones.