Recent Development of Indoor Organic Photovoltaics

Solar energy technologies provide solutions for the effective exploitation of internet of things (IoT)‐based applications such as smart devices. Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) fabricated from π ‐conjugated carbon‐based semiconductors have shown great potential for indoor applications based on exceptional properties that include small current leakage under dim lighting, large absorption coefficient, and low‐cost solution processes. However, organic cells need additional enhancements, such as improving their dim light absorption and exploiting suitable bandgap materials, to make the best use of indoor lighting photons. This article highlights the crucial role of the theoretical basis of photovoltaics and reviews the effect of active layer thickness. Furthermore, the crucial advancements in material design for indoor OPVs are highlighted herein. Lastly, the contribution of plasmonic effect of metallic nanoparticles (MNPs) to improve the performance of OPVs is elaborated, which could contribute to raising the efficiency of energy conversion and reaching production scale criteria.