Trendsetters in High-Efficiency Organic Solar Cells: Toward 20% Power Conversion Efficiency

Organic solar cells (OSCs) are one of the most promising low-carbon technologies for the generation of electricity. It is blessed with a relatively lower installation time and cost, light weight, semitransparent nature, and suitability for roll-to-roll printing process. In the past, critics of OSCs were concerned about its limited efficiency compared with other contemporary photovoltaic (PV) technologies. However, in the past few years, researchers in this field have made sufficient progress in terms of high performance, and OSC efficiency has witnessed significant growth. Today, a large number of OSCs are demonstrating >10% efficiency, recently reaching the milestone of 17%. The boost in efficiency is crucial for the successful commercialization of OSC. Herein, the recent advancements in OSC are highlighted to analyze the key players working behind the surge in its efficiency. The contributions of novel organic photovoltaics materials and their morphology as well as novel device architectures are discussed. Finally, the major challenges facing the upscaling and commercialization of OSCs are addressed.