Tandem polymer solar cells featuring a spectrally matched low-bandgap polymer

Tandem solar cells provide an effective way to harvest a broader spectrum of solar radiation by combining two or more solar cells with different absorption bands. However, for polymer solar cells, the performance of tandem devices lags behind single-layer solar cells mainly due to the lack of a suitable low-bandgap polymer. Here, we demonstrate highly efficient single and tandem polymer solar cells featuring a low-bandgap conjugated polymer (PBDTT-DPP: bandgap, similar to 1.44 eV). A single-layer device based on the polymer provides a power conversion efficiency of similar to 6%. When the polymer is applied to tandem solar cells, a power conversion efficiency of 8.62% is achieved, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the highest certified efficiency for a polymer solar cell to date.