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Recent Progress in Indacenodithiophene-Based Acceptor Materials for Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells

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Abstract

Domesticating solar energy by exploiting photovoltaic technology has become a quintessential strategy for future global energy production. Since 2015, non-fullerene organic solar cells (NF-OSC) have attracted a great deal of attention owing to the marvellous properties of non-fullerene acceptors (NFA) such as structural versability, broad absorption, suitable energy levels, tunable charge transport and morphology, leading to remarkable accomplishments in power conversion efficiency (PCE) from 1% to nearly 20%. One class of materials is provided by the fused ring aromatic indacenodithiophene (IDT) and its derivatives, which are emerging continuously as promising next-generation building blocks to construct high performance photovoltaic materials. Encouraging PCEs of more than 15% have been achieved in their binary NF-OSCs, while careful device engineering and proper amalgamation of a third component have led to PCEs of almost 18% in ternary devices. This review surveys recent developments in the area of IDT-based materials for photovoltaic applications. Different strategies to develop efficient IDT-based NFA and factors influencing the bandgaps, molecular energy levels, charge transport properties, and film morphologies, as well as the photovoltaic performance of these materials, are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

M.S.K. acknowledges His Majesty's Trust Fund for Strategic Research (Grant no. SR/SQU/SCI/CHEM/21/01) and The Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (MoHERI), Oman (Grant no.: RC/RG-SCI/CHEM/20/01) for funding. R.I. thanks HM's Trust Fund for a postdoctoral fellowship. H.A.S. acknowledges the Ministry of Education, Oman and SQU for a Ph.D. scholarship.

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  1. Department of Chemistry, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 36, 123, Al-Khod, Oman

    Rashid Ilmi, Houda Al-Sharji & Muhammad S. Khan

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  1. Rashid Ilmi
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Ilmi, R., Al-Sharji, H. & Khan, M.S. Recent Progress in Indacenodithiophene-Based Acceptor Materials for Non-Fullerene Organic Solar Cells. Top Curr Chem (Z) 380, 18 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41061-022-00372-y

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