Long exciton diffusion distance and efficient exciton dissociation enable high efficiency planar heterojunction non-fullerene organic solar cells

We characterized exciton diffusion and dissociation behaviour in two ITIC derivatives non-fullerene acceptors (NFA) by time-resolved spectroscopic methods. The exciton diffusion length was determined to be ∼26 and ∼34 nm in ITIC and IT4F. We further examined the dissociation of excitons in those NFA at the acceptor/donor planar heterojunction interfaces by transient absorption measurements, in which efficient charge generation was observed. Finally, we fabricated planar heterojunction solar cells using PM6/NFA bilayer planar heterojunctions; a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of over 7 % for PM6/IT4F bilayers was determined. More importantly, the spin-coating of top layer NFA has negligible influence on the morphology of the PM6 layer, suggesting a clear bilayer interface, rather than a quasi-bilayer structure with a portion of bulk heterojunction. The results suggest that enhanced exciton diffusion length and efficient exciton dissociation and charge generation are elemental characters to realize high PCE planar heterojunction organic solar cells. We established direct linking between the exciton diffusion length and the photocurrent generation in NFA layer by transfer matrix simulation. The large exciton diffusion length in NFAs makes the realization of high efficiency and stable bilayer organic solar cells feasible.