Interfacial Materials for Organic Solar Cells: Recent Advances and Perspectives

Abstract

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have shown great promise as low-cost photovoltaic devices for solar energy conversion over the past decade. Interfacial engineering provides a powerful strategy to enhance efficiency and stability of OSCs. With the rapid advances of interface layer materials and active layer materials, power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of both single-junction and tandem OSCs have exceeded a landmark value of 10%. This review summarizes the latest advances in interfacial layers for single-junction and tandem OSCs. Electron or hole transporting materials, including metal oxides, polymers/small-molecules, metals and metal salts/complexes, carbon-based materials, organic-inorganic hybrids/composites, and other emerging materials, are systemically presented as cathode and anode interface layers for high performance OSCs. Meanwhile, incorporating these electron-transporting and hole-transporting layer materials as building blocks, a variety of interconnecting layers for conventional or inverted tandem OSCs are comprehensively discussed, along with their functions to bridge the difference between adjacent subcells. By analyzing the structure–property relationships of various interfacial materials, the important design rules for such materials towards high efficiency and stable OSCs are highlighted. Finally, we present a brief summary as well as some perspectives to help researchers understand the current challenges and opportunities in this emerging area of research.