Over the past decades, fullerene derivatives have become the most successful electron acceptors in organic solar cells (OSCs) and have achieved great progress, with power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of over 11 %. However, fullerenes have some drawbacks, such as weak absorption, limited energy-level tunability, and morphological instability. In addition, fullerene-based OSCs usually suffer from large energy losses of over 0.7 eV, which limits further improvements in the PCE. Recently, nonfullerene small molecules have emerged as promising electron acceptors in OSCs. Their highly tunable absorption spectra and molecular energy levels have enabled fine optimization of the resulting devices, and the highest PCE has surpassed 12 %. Furthermore, several studies have shown that OSCs based on small-molecule acceptors (SMA) have very efficient charge generation and transport efficiency at relatively low energy losses of below 0.6 eV, which suggests great potential for the further improvement of OSCs. In this focus review, we analyze the challenges and potential of SMA-based OSCs and discuss molecular design strategies for highly efficient SMAs.
Keywords: donor-acceptor systems; energy loss; polymers; small molecules; solar cells.
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