IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v11y2020i1d10.1038_s41467-020-19332-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Long-lived and disorder-free charge transfer states enable endothermic charge separation in efficient non-fullerene organic solar cells

Author

Listed:
  • Ture F. Hinrichsen

    (University of Cambridge)

  • Christopher C. S. Chan

    (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

  • Chao Ma

    (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

  • David Paleček

    (University of Cambridge)

  • Alexander Gillett

    (University of Cambridge)

  • Shangshang Chen

    (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

  • Xinhui Zou

    (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

  • Guichuan Zhang

    (South China University of Technology)

  • Hin-Lap Yip

    (South China University of Technology)

  • Kam Sing Wong

    (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

  • Richard H. Friend

    (University of Cambridge)

  • He Yan

    (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

  • Akshay Rao

    (University of Cambridge)

  • Philip C. Y. Chow

    (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
    The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam)

Abstract

Organic solar cells based on non-fullerene acceptors can show high charge generation yields despite near-zero donor–acceptor energy offsets to drive charge separation and overcome the mutual Coulomb attraction between electron and hole. Here, we use time-resolved optical spectroscopy to show that free charges in these systems are generated by thermally activated dissociation of interfacial charge-transfer states that occurs over hundreds of picoseconds at room temperature, three orders of magnitude slower than comparable fullerene-based systems. Upon free electron–hole encounters at later times, both charge-transfer states and emissive excitons are regenerated, thus setting up an equilibrium between excitons, charge-transfer states and free charges. Our results suggest that the formation of long-lived and disorder-free charge-transfer states in these systems enables them to operate closely to quasi-thermodynamic conditions with no requirement for energy offsets to drive interfacial charge separation and achieve suppressed non-radiative recombination.

Suggested Citation

  • Ture F. Hinrichsen & Christopher C. S. Chan & Chao Ma & David Paleček & Alexander Gillett & Shangshang Chen & Xinhui Zou & Guichuan Zhang & Hin-Lap Yip & Kam Sing Wong & Richard H. Friend & He Yan & A, 2020. "Long-lived and disorder-free charge transfer states enable endothermic charge separation in efficient non-fullerene organic solar cells," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 11(1), pages 1-10, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19332-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19332-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19332-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41467-020-19332-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhen Wang & Yu Guo & Xianzhao Liu & Wenchao Shu & Guangchao Han & Kan Ding & Subhrangsu Mukherjee & Nan Zhang & Hin-Lap Yip & Yuanping Yi & Harald Ade & Philip C. Y. Chow, 2024. "The role of interfacial donor–acceptor percolation in efficient and stable all-polymer solar cells," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-19332-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.