Single-Junction Organic Solar Cell with over 15% Efficiency Using Fused-Ring Acceptor with Electron-Deficient Core¶
Why this mattered¶
Before this work, organic photovoltaics had already moved beyond fullerene acceptors, but the field still lacked a broadly convincing route to single-junction efficiencies in the mid-teens. Yuan et al. made that route concrete with Y6, a near-infrared-absorbing non-fullerene acceptor built around an electron-deficient fused-ring core. In PM6:Y6 devices, the paper reported 15.7% power conversion efficiency in both conventional and inverted architectures, with 14.9% certified and 13.6% retained at a 300 nm active-layer thickness (Joule, 2019). That combination mattered because it addressed not only peak efficiency, but also architecture tolerance and film-thickness tolerance, two practical constraints for organic solar cells.
The paradigm shift was molecular: Y6 showed that acceptors did not merely need to replace fullerenes; they could define a new design space. Its A-DA′D-A fused-ring framework, electron-deficient core, tuned electron affinity, and extended absorption became a template for “Y-series” acceptors. After this paper, much of high-performance organic photovoltaic research reorganized around Y6 derivatives, donor-acceptor pairing, morphology control, ternary blends, and voltage-loss reduction rather than around fullerene-centered optimization.
Subsequent milestones, including reports of 18% and 19% single-junction organic photovoltaic cells, built directly on this Y-series acceptor lineage and its design logic (Journal of Semiconductors review). The paper therefore mattered less as a one-off record and more as a new materials platform: it made organic solar cells look newly competitive as lightweight, solution-processable, semitransparent, and flexible photovoltaics, while also clarifying that further progress would depend on stability, scalable processing, and reproducible morphology rather than efficiency alone.
Abstract¶
(no abstract available)
Related¶
- cite → Polymer Photovoltaic Cells: Enhanced Efficiencies via a Network of Internal Donor-Acceptor Heterojunctions — The 15%-efficiency organic solar cell builds on the bulk heterojunction donor-acceptor network concept introduced for polymer photovoltaic cells.
- enables ← Polymer Photovoltaic Cells: Enhanced Efficiencies via a Network of Internal Donor-Acceptor Heterojunctions — Bulk heterojunction donor-acceptor networks established the morphology principle later optimized with fused-ring nonfullerene acceptors for high-efficiency organic solar cells.