A review on organic photovoltaic cell

Abstract

Summary The objective of this article is to identify how organic photovoltaic cells have been addressed in scientific studies published until 2022. To this end, a literature review was conducted, which involved the search for articles through the Advanced Search tool of the Periodicals portal of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, as well as the preparation of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to assist in the classifying the articles, followed by a structured analysis of the structure, operating principle, materials, performance parameters, stability/life span/degradation, challenges, opportunities, and applications of organic photovoltaic cells. The results of this research point out that organic photovoltaic devices are formed by electrodes (anode, such as indium‐tin oxide, silver nanowires, carbon nanotubes and graphene and cathode, such as calcium, barium, or aluminum), hole transport layers (PEDOT:PSS), and electrons (ZnO or the TiO2), as well as by the active layer (donor, such as P3HT or PTB7, and acceptor, such as C60 and C70 fullerenes and their PCBM derivatives, as well as non‐fulerene acceptors). We further identify that the working principle of organic photovoltaic cells consists in the generation of photocurrent from the absorption of a photon that results in an exciton, this in turn diffuses to the donor–acceptor interface, and disassociates into free carriers, which carry collected charges to the electrodes. We find that organic photovoltaic cells are simple to manufacture, less expensive, more flexible, lightweight, and that the development of these devices has advanced in recent years. However, for practical relevance, some challenges need to be overcome, including power conversion efficiency, stability, degradation, lifetime, as well as fabrication of large areas through roll‐to‐roll methods.

Molecular structure – intrinsic photostability relationships for diketopyrrolopyrrole-based conjugated polymers

“…These reactions are, contrary to (3)(4)(5), entropically favored and are quite endothermic at 0 K: DE(0 K) = 1.73 eV (for 7) and 1.47 eV (for 8). As such, we expect these reactions to be more dominant at higher temperatures and reactions (3-5) at lower temperatures.…”

“…Organic solar cells represent an exciting technology, which features potential for multiple unique applications in buildingintegrated photovoltaics (PVs), for example, self-powered smart windows, textile-integrated PVs (e.g., wearable electronics), efficient energy harvesting under indoor illumination, powering different types of Internet of Things (IoT) remote sensors and other applications. [1][2][3][4][5][6] The efficiency of organic solar cells has been steadily growing and now exceeds 18% for the best certi-ed small-area laboratory samples. 7,8 There is also substantial progress in the development of high throughput roll-to-roll printing and coating technologies for production of exible and lightweight organic photovoltaic panels at a low-cost.…”

Organic Donor‐Acceptor Complexes As Potential Semiconducting Materials

“…[38,39] They are also used in nonlinear optics, [40] photoelectric conversion [41] and for prompt response to external stimuli. [42][43][44] Their wide commercial applications as gas sensors, [45] heterogeneous catalysts, [46] photocatalysts, [47] chemical sensors, [48,49] optoelectronic sensors in medicine, [50,51] organic semiconductors in OFETs, [52] OLEDs, [53,54] OPVs, [55] in prosthetics, [56] robotics, [57] stretchable and bio-implanted wearables [58] have encouraged the researchers to explore them further. These interface properties highlight the potential of such systems to be used as thermoelectrics.…”

All‐Green Solvent and Additive Combination Enables Efficient Nonfullerene Organic Solar Cells via Sequential Deposition Strategy

“…Organic solar cells (OSCs) are of great interest to scholars because of their unique advantages, such as lightweight, roll-to-roll printing, low cost, etc. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] With the development of materials [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and process innovations, [28][29][30][31] the efficiencies of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) OSCs have exceeded 18%. [32][33][34][35][36][37] The performance of the BHJ OSCs, which is prepared by solution processing of donor and acceptor materials, depends on the morphology of the active layer.…”