Ambient-Air-Processed, Solution-Based Organic Photovoltaics and Photodetectors

Abstract

Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) and organic photodetectors (OPDs), which use conjugated polymers and molecules as photoactive materials, hold significant promise for energy harvesting and sensing applications due to their customizable optoelectronic properties, potential mechanical flexibility, and compatibility with low-cost, high-throughput manufacturing. However, OPV and OPD research to date has typically relied on device fabrication in controlled environments (e.g., glove boxes filled with inert gases) and vacuum-deposited (rather than solution-processed) electrodes, limiting scalability and increasing manufacturing complexity and cost. This review explores these challenges by surveying the development of ambient-air-processed, solution-based (APSB) OPVs and OPDs, which not only use solution-processed electrodes but are also entirely fabricated under ambient conditions. Various solution processing techniques, solution-processed electrodes, and the performance of APSB OPVs and OPDs are comprehensively examined, offering insights for future research to advance these technologies toward ultra-low-cost optoelectronics and energy harvesting.