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

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 (), Akshay Rao () and Philip C. Y. Chow ()
Additional contact information
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

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19332-5

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