Over 16% efficiency organic photovoltaic cells enabled by a chlorinated acceptor with increased open-circuit voltages

Abstract Broadening the optical absorption of organic photovoltaic (OPV) materials by enhancing the intramolecular push-pull effect is a general and effective method to improve the power conversion efficiencies of OPV cells. However, in terms of the electron acceptors, the most common molecular design strategy of halogenation usually results in down-shifted molecular energy levels, thereby leading to decreased open-circuit voltages in the devices. Herein, we report a chlorinated non-fullerene acceptor, which exhibits an extended optical absorption and meanwhile displays a higher voltage than its fluorinated counterpart in the devices. This unexpected phenomenon can be ascribed to the reduced non-radiative energy loss (0.206 eV). Due to the simultaneously improved short-circuit current density and open-circuit voltage, a high efficiency of 16.5% is achieved. This study demonstrates that finely tuning the OPV materials to reduce the bandgap-voltage offset has great potential for boosting the efficiency.