Single‐Material Organic Solar Cells Based on Small Molecule Homojunctions: An Outdated Concept or a New Challenge for the Chemistry and Physics of Organic Photovoltaics?

Abstract

AbstractSingle‐material organic solar cells (SMOSCs) are on the forefront of research on organic photovoltaics (OPV). The generic term of SMOSCs encompasses a large variety of chemical structures implying very different basic concepts. Polydisperse «double cable» polymers and oligomers with acceptor groups linked to the conjugated backbone by a flexible spacer and donor–acceptor block copolymers are at present, the most investigated and efficient systems with spectacular progress in conversion efficiency achieved in the past 2–3 years. However, besides this mainstream SMOSCs research, a few recent publications describe OPV cells constituted of homojunctions based on small π‐conjugated molecules. While the process of charge generation in such systems is still a matter of debate due in particular to the possible direct photogeneration of charge–carriers, devices with significant performance have been recently reported. After a brief overview of the most recent advances on the various types of SMOSCs, recent remarkable results on homojunction OPV cells based on small π‐conjugated molecules are discussed in order to highlight the potential fundamental and technological interest of this emerging field of research.