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Efficiencies of organic solar cells have practically doubled since the development of non‐fullerene acceptors (NFAs). However, generic chemical design rules for donor‐NFA combinations are still needed. Such rules are proposed by analyzing inhomogeneous electrostatic fields at the donor–acceptor interface. It is shown that an acceptor–donor–acceptor molecular architecture, and molecular alignment parallel to the interface, results in energy level bending that destabilizes the charge transfer state, thus promoting its dissociation into free charges. By analyzing a series of PCE10:NFA solar cells, with NFAs including Y6, IEICO, and ITIC, as well as their halogenated derivatives, it is suggested that the molecular quadrupole moment of ≈75 Debye Å balances the losses in the open circuit voltage and gains in charge generation efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Nonfullerene' acceptors are proving effective in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells when paired with selected polymer donors. However, the principles that guide the selection of adequate polymer donors for high-efficiency BHJ solar cells with nonfullerene acceptors remain a matter of some debate and, while polymer main-chain substitutions may have a direct influence on the donor-acceptor interplay, those effects should be examined and correlated with BHJ device performance patterns. This report examines a set of wide-bandgap polymer donor analogues composed of benzo[1,2- b:4,5- b′]dithiophene (BDT), and thienyl ([2H]T) or 3,4-difluorothiophene ([2F]T) motifs, and their BHJ device performance pattern with the nonfullerene acceptor 'ITIC'. Studies show that the fluorine- and ring-substituted derivative PBDT(T)[2F]T largely outperforms its other two polymer donor counterparts, reaching power conversion efficiencies as high as 9.8%. Combining several characterization techniques, the gradual device performance improvements observed on swapping PBDT[2H]T for PBDT[2F]T, and then for PBDT(T)[2F]T, are found to result from (i) notably improved charge generation and collection efficiencies (estimated as ≈60%, 80%, and 90%, respectively), and (ii) reduced geminate recombination (being suppressed from ≈30%, 25% to 10%) and bimolecular recombination (inferred from recombination rate constant comparisons). These examinations will have broader implications for further studies on the optimization of BHJ solar cell efficiencies with polymer donors and a wider range of nonfullerene acceptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]