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[Display omitted] • Explanatory scientific mapping of Perovskite solar cell technology (PSCT) is presented. • Prominent authors and organizations shaping the landscape of PSCT are presented. • By using keywords and thematic analysis, trending topics and the evolution of research are explored. • Perspectives of the primary issues and recommendations for PSCT are proposed. Extensive literature on Perovskite solar cell technology (PSCT) has become widespread as technology enables more innovations in the field. Despite efficient platforms like Web of Science, Scopus, Google Scholar, and others, challenges persist for new researchers in search of synchronized key information in the PSCT field. Inefficiencies arise from scattered data, hindering the research cycle for the new researchers. Moreover, policy-making and planning by the stakeholders (Government, Academia, and Industry) in research and innovation rely on data-driven approaches, emphasizing the need for identifying key information to mitigate technological risks in the field of PSCT. This research gap is addressed by the effective extraction of key knowledge from the fragmented literature of PSCT. To achieve this, a comprehensive scientific mapping is conducted via bibliometric analysis, encompassing a collection of 11,092 scientific publications. All relevant data that can bridge the mentioned research gap has been meticulously extracted and analyzed from the mentioned literature which involves the trend from inception, main contributors (countries, researchers, and production sources) to PSCT, detailed keywords, and thematic analysis. The key results reveal that People's republic of China, the USA, and India significantly contribute to PSCT research, leading in publications and citations. "ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces" followed by "Journal of Materials A," "Solar RRL," and "Advanced Energy Materials." Keyword analysis identifies four clusters: "stability," "efficiency," "optical properties," and environmental concerns. The trends show the perspective of the PSCT sub-areas, like stability for commercialization, innovative methods for performance improvement, and considerations for lead-free options. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inclusion of plasmonic nanoparticles into organic solar cell enhances the light harvesting properties that lead to higher power conversion efficiency without altering the device configuration. This work defines the consequences of the nanoparticle overloading amount and energy transfer process between gold nanorod and polymer (active matrix) in organic solar cells. We have studied the hole population decay dynamics coupled with gold nanorods loading amount which provides better understanding about device performance limiting factors. The exciton and plasmon together act as an interacting dipole; however, the energy exchange between these two has been elucidated via plasmon resonance energy transfer (PRET) mechanism. Further, the charge species have been identified specifically with respect to their energy levels appearing in ultrafast time domain. The specific interaction of these charge species with respective surface plasmon resonance mode, i.e., exciton to transverse mode of oscillation and polaron pair to longitudinal mode of oscillations, has been explained. Thus, our analysis reveals that PRET enhances the carrier population density in polymer via non-radiative process beyond the concurrence of a particular plasmon resonance oscillation mode and polymer absorption range. These findings give new insight and reveal specifically the factors that enhance and control the performance of gold nanorods blended organic solar cells. This work would lead in the emergence of future plasmon based efficient organic electronic devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fullerene derivatives (C60 and C70) have been widely used in excitonic solar cells due to their exceptional electron accepting properties and low reorganization energies. In recent years, a wide variety of fullerene-based n-type materials have been developed, showing tremendous potential in the field of organic photovoltaics. However, only a few studies have been performed on heteroatom bearing methanofullerenes and their opto-electronic properties for use as n-type organic semiconductor materials. In the present study, we report the synthesis of two mono-substituted methanofullerene derivatives, i.e., C60-Th (Product 1) and C60-TPA (Product 2), with a heteroatom (S and N, respectively) in the exohedral chain attached via an ethylene linker to the cyclopropane ring, and a comprehensive study of their photophysical and electrochemical properties. The methanofullerene derivatives have been synthesized using an amine-assisted cycloaddition (AACA) reaction method. The structures of the synthesized products were established via different spectroscopic techniques. Reasonable quenching efficiencies were observed with respect to the fluorescence emission in mixtures with the donor polymer P3HT using both methanofullerenes. The electron transport properties were evaluated through fabricating electron-only devices, and 10 and 6 times higher mobilities were found compared to PC61BM for Products 1 and 2, respectively. Finally, the charge transfer properties were evaluated in mixtures with P3HT via transient absorption spectroscopy to study the ultrafast charge separation and formation of long-lived charge-separated states. The study suggests that both the products show excellent electron transport properties and the formation of longer-lived charge-separated states in mixtures with the donor polymer for use as n-type materials for organic solar cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ultrafast charge carrier dynamics as well as the generation of polaron pair in squaraine (SQ) and squaraine:[6,6]-phenyl-C 71-butyric acid methyl ester (SQ:PCBM71) have been studied using ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy (UTAS). The current study reveals that the pure SQ exhibits the creation of singlet and triplet states; however, incorporation of PCBM71 in SQ results in the formation of polaron pairs with ∼550ps lifetime, which in turn leads to the creation of free electrons in the device. We show that the considerable increment in monomolecular and bimolecular recombination in SQ:PCBM71 compared to pure SQ which describes the interfacial compatibility of SQ and PCBMC71 molecules. The present work not only provides the information about the carrier generation in SQ and SQ:PCBM71 but also gives the facts relating to the effect of PCBM71 mixing into the SQ which is very significant because the SQ has donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) structure and mixing one more acceptor can introduce more complex recombinations in the blend. These findings have been complimented by the charge transport study in the device using impedance spectroscopy. The various important transport parameters are transit time (τt), diffusion constant (Dn), global mobility (μ) and carrier lifetime (τr). The values of these parameters are 26.38 μs, 4.64x10-6 cm2s-1, 6.12x10-6 cm2V-1s-1 and 399 μs, respectively. To the best of our knowledge such study related to SQ is not present in the literature comprehensively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work, we report enhanced power conversion efficiency (PCE) of bulk heterojunction polymer solar cells by Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) from samarium-doped luminescent gadolinium orthovanadate (GdVO4:Sm3+) quantum dots (QDs) to polythieno[3,4-b]-thiophene-co-benzodithiophene (PTB7) polymer. The photoluminescence emission spectrum of GdVO4:Sm3+ QDs overlaps with the absorption spectrum of PTB7, leading to FRET from GdVO4:Sm3+ to PTB7, and significant enhancements in the charge-carrier density of excited and polaronic states of PTB7 are observed. This was confirmed by means of femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy. The FRET from GdVO4:Sm3+ QDs to PTB7 led to a remarkable increase in the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of PTB7:GdVO4:Sm3+:PC71BM ([6,6]-phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester) polymer solar cells. The PCE in optimized ternary blend PTB7:GdVO4:Sm3+:PC71BM (1:0.1:1.5) is increased to 8.8% from 7.2% in PTB7:PC71BM. This work demonstrates the potential of rare-earth based luminescent QDs in enhancing the PCE of polymer solar cells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• D-A-D triads type molecules synthesized using perylenediimde (PDI) bonded with naphthalenediimide (NDI) units via aliphatic (Triad 1) or aromatic (Triad 2) linker showed symmetry breaking charge separation (SB-CS). • SB-CS phenomenon is studied using photoluminescence, time resolved fluorescence, transient absorption spectroscopy techniques. • The organic solar cell fabricated using Triad 2 resulted in better device performance compared to Triad 1 due to increased open circuit voltage (V oc) because of more effective SB-CS state. • Triad 2 shows overall better power conversion efficiency of 4.4 % with FF 67 % in comparison to Triad 1. Multichromophoric D-A-D triads synthesized using perylenediimde (PDI) bonded with naphthalenediimide (NDI) units via aliphatic (Triad 1) or aromatic (Triad 2) linker is studied for symmetry breaking charge separation (SB-CS) by selective excitation of the NDI/PDI chromophores. NDI chromophore on excitation transfers electron to PDI chromophore and type of linker played crucial role in stability of generated CS state. Photoluminescence, time resolved fluorescense and transient absorption spectroscopy tools have been used to study the phenomenon. The optical as well as electrochemical study confirmed intramolecular electron transfer from NDI to PDI chromophore. Stable SB-CS state formation is directly resulted in increased open circuit voltage (V oc) of Triad 2 based organic solar cell devices. The selective excitation of chromophoric center and SB-CS in D-A-D type triad is the demand of present electronic device for the formation of long lived charge carrier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] Development of metal dichalcogenides based air and water stable opto-electronic devices is a bottleneck in their commercial implementation. Here we address this issue by the direct catalyst-free deposition of fluorographene (FG) protective layer over monolayer MoS 2 (MS), where such an atomic interface is found to be providing enormous photoresponse and chemical stability to the device. Electric field modulated (ionic liquid (IL) electrolyte based top-gated) photodetectors are developed with MS only and FG-MS heterostructure, where the MS photodetector has the responsivity of ~1.3 A/W (with V GS = 0 V while unstable with IL gating) while that of FG-MS is ~2000 A/W (with V GS = 0 V and ~8000 A/W with V GS = 1.5 V, and the detectivity ~1013). This giant photoresponse of the FG-MS is validated with the help of ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy assisted charge carrier dynamics studies at different temperatures. The broad optical response (350–850 nm) of the FG-MS is found to be intact not only in IL based gating but also after exposing in water for a month or heat treated in air at 200 °C. Interfacing and capping with FG, developed via the direct growth method, are found to be ideal for realizing high shelf-life and good responsivity photodetectors and solar cells of several other monolayer TMDs too, while available for wafer-scale manufacture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ozone treated ZnO surface analysed in term of crystallinity, and structure by SEM and XRD. • Charge transport in ozone treated ZnO surface studied by ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy. • Comparison of the electrical parameter of the organic solar cell under different ozone treatment time. • Defect state and its impact on performance of organic solar cell identified using capacitance spectroscopy. Zinc oxide (ZnO) has great potential as an electron transport layer (ETL) for producing efficient and stable organic solar cells. The effect of ozone treatment on ZnO working as the ETL in the organic solar cell has been studied by analyzing crystallinity, the defect density of states, and charge carrier dynamics from transient absorption spectroscopy to understand its role in the improvement in the interface between ETL and active layers. We have observed that a 10-minute continuous ozone treatment of ZnO film demonstrates improvement in its crystallinity leading to a 23% increment in short circuit current. The improvement in the crystallinity has been confirmed by the morphological and structural analysis using SEM and GIXRD. These analyses reveal the formation of a flake-like structure and an increase in peak intensity in GIXRD. It has been observed that ozone exposure has significantly affected the carrier recombination resistance, ideality factor of the device. From transient absorption spectroscopy, it has been found that for 10 min ozone-treated ZnO film has an average carrier transport time (661.79 ps), which is smallest as compared to untreated film or over treated film leading to faster carrier extraction through ETL. Further, the study of defect density of states shows that optimized ozone-treated film show 22.08% decrease in defects as compared to the control device, which primarily reflected as the improvement in the current density leading to increase in device efficiency from 2.95% to 3.75%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We investigate the charge carrier dynamics of inverted organic solar cells (OSCs) based on PffBT4T-2OD: PCBM and PTB7: PCBM – the two leading systems among the OSCs based on polymer-fullerene bulk-heterojunction – to elucidate the origin of their performance difference. Transient absorption spectroscopy (TAS) and photo-electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (photo-EIS) were employed to unravel the photo-physics that govern the cell operation of these two highly efficient bulk heterojunction OSCs. While photo-EIS indicates that the two systems under study exhibit similar behavior in terms of recombination, TAS results reveal that PffBT4T-2OD: PCBM systems not only have higher charge generation rate but also more efficient charge transfer than PTB7: PCBM systems, leading to the power conversion efficiency of PffBT4T-2OD: PCBM-based OSCs (9.16%) that is higher than that of PTB7: PCBM-based OSCs (6.44%). Graphical abstract Image 1 Highlights • Charge carrier dynamics of PffBT4T-2OD: PCBM and PTB7: PCBM OSCs have been compared. • TAS and Photo-EIS measurements along with optical simulation were carried out. • Higher PCE for PffBT4T-2OD: PCBM OSCs is due to better absorption and carrier collection efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indene-C 60 bisadduct (ICBA) is one of the rare acceptors which can supersede commonly used phenyl-C71-butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM70) in enhancing the performance of bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells owing to its shallower lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) level. However, ICBA tends to decrease the photocurrent for most of the low band-gap polymers synthesized to date. Here we examine the interaction of ICBA with the one of the popular low band-gap polymers poly[[4,8-bis[(2-ethylhexyl)oxy]benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene-2,6-diyl][3-fluoro-2-[(2-ethylhexyl) carbonyl] thieno[3,4- b ]thiophenediyl]] (PTB7), at femtosecond level, to explore key dynamics governing the operation of BHJ cells involving ICBA. The photo-physics of binary and ternary systems based on PTB7 coupled with PCBM70 and/or ICBA are studied by means of transient absorption spectroscopy (TAS) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and supported by morphology analysis. Our study suggests that both inefficient charge-separation and poor charge transport of ICBA is responsible for relatively low photocurrent generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]