High-Performance Fullerene-Free Polymer Solar Cells Featuring Efficient Photocurrent Generation from Dual Pathways and Low Nonradiative Recombination Loss

Abstract

Efficient charge generation is a prerequisite to achieve high power conversion efficiency (PCE) in organic/polymer solar cells (OSCs/PSCs), which involves photoinduced electron transfer and/or hole transfer between the donor/acceptor interface upon photoexcitation. A high yield of charge from both processes usually requires sufficient energy offset between the donor and acceptor for charge separation, fast transport, and extraction for charge collection, as well as significant absorption complementation to maximize photon harvest. Here we demonstrate highly efficient PSCs with efficient dual photocurrent generation pathways from a blend of a polymer donor and two narrow-bandgap nonfullerene acceptors, with an outstanding certified PCE of 13.0% (verified as 12.5%) in PSCs with single-junction device architecture. The devices from these material systems show nonradiative recombination loss of ∼0.22–0.24 V, one of the smallest values for OSCs achieved so far and comparable to those of solar cells based on monocrystalline Si or metal-halide perovskites. This study highlights that dual charge generation pathways with high yield and strongly reduced voltage loss are indispensable for further increasing the PCE of OSCs.