Latest Progress on Photoabsorbent Materials for Multifunctional Semitransparent Organic Solar Cells

Abstract

Semi‐transparent organic solar cells (ST‐OSCs) have revolutionized the field of photovoltaics (PVs) due to their unique abilities, such as transparency and color tunability, and have transformed normal power‐harvesting OSC devices into multifunctional devices, such as building‐integrated photovoltaics, agrivoltaics, floating photovoltaics, and wearable electronics. Very recently, ST‐OSCs have seen remarkable progress, with a rapid increase in power conversion efficiency from below 7% to 12–14%, with an average visible transparency of 9–25%, especially due to the use of low bandgap semiconductors including polymer donors and non‐fullerene acceptors that exhibit absorption in the near‐infrared region as photoabsorbent materials. From this perspective, the latest developments in ST‐OSCs stemming from the innovations in photovoltaic materials that delivered multifunctional ST‐OSCs with top‐of‐the‐line power conversion efficiencies are discussed to shed light on the structure‐property relationship between molecular design and current challenges in this cutting‐edge research field. Finally, personal perspectives, including research directions for the future use of ST‐OSCs in multifunctional applications, are also proposed.

Film‐Depth‐Dependent Light Reflection Spectroscopy for Photovoltaics and Transistors

“…For example, optically and electronically active polymer films are attracting more and more attention for next generation opto–electronic applications, due to their low‐cost solution processability. [ 1–7 ] During film depositions or post treatments, the anisotropic phase evolution along film‐depth direction commonly occurs in such films, leading to film‐depth‐dependent composition distribution, contributing to film‐depth‐dependent optical and electronic properties. [ 8–12 ] In fact, some methods, for example, secondary ionic mass spectroscopy, [ 10,13 ] photoelectron spectroscopy, [ 14–16 ] and cross‐sectional microscopy [ 17 ] are employed for depth profiling in terms of film‐depth‐dependent composition distribution.…”

Efficient semi-transparent organic solar cells enabled by a quasi-heterojunction active layer structure

“…4–9 In particular, semi-transparent OSCs (ST-OSCs), which convert a certain part of sunlight into electrical energy and let the other part through, have potential applications in building-integrated photovoltaics and portable electronic devices. 10–13 Donor:acceptor blend bulk heterojunctions (BHJs) fabricated via one-step processing are the most prevalent active layer structures in opaque OSCs and ST-OSCs. 14–18 Due to the rapid development of novel organic donor and acceptor materials, the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of opaque BHJ OSCs have broken through 18%.…”

Phenalene—A New Ring-Locked Vinyl Bridge for Nonfullerene Acceptors With Enhanced Chemical and Photochemical Stabilities

“…As one of the third-generation photovoltaic techniques, organic solar cells (OSCs) have demonstrated outstanding potentials in the fields of flexible devices, semi-transparent devices, indoor photovoltaics, and so on (Liu et al, 2021c;Dauzon et al, 2021;Kini et al, 2021;Xie et al, 2021). Excitingly, the record power conversion efficiency (PCE) of OSCs has been continuously rising in recent years, and a value exceeding 19% has been achieved already Wang et al, 2021), attributed to the innovative design and exploitation of photovoltaic materials and device architecture (Li et al, 2019;Cui and Li, 2021;Liu W. et al, 2021;Gao et al, 2021;Ren et al, 2021;Yin et al, 2021;Zheng et al, 2021).…”