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A novel polymer donor (PBDTS-Se) is designed to match with a non-fullerene acceptor (SdiPBI-S). The corresponding solar cells show a high efficiency of 8.22%, which result from synergetic improvements of light harvesting, charge carrier transport and collection, and morphology. The results indicate that rational design of novel donor materials is important for non-fullerene organic solar cells.

In the development of high‐performance organic solar cells (OSCs), the self‐organization of organic semiconductors plays a crucial role. This study focuses on the precisely manipulation of molecular assemble via tuning alkyl side‐chain topology in a series of low‐cost nonfused‐ring electron acceptors (NFREAs). Among the three NFREAs investigated, DPA‐4, which possesses an asymmetric alkyl side‐chain length, exhibits a tight packing in the crystal and high crystallinity in the film, contributing to improved electron mobility and favorable film morphology for DPA‐4. As a result, the OSC device based on DPA‐4 achieves an excellent power conversion efficiency of 16.67 %, ranking among the highest efficiencies for NFREA‐based OSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive Summary: By employing the asymmetric end‐group engineering, an asymmetric nonfused‐ring electron acceptor (NFREA) was designed and synthesized. Compared with the symmetric analogs (NoCA‐17 and NoCA‐18), NoCA‐19 possesses broader light absorption range, more coplanar π‐conjugated backbone, and appropriate crystallinity according to the experimental and theoretical results. The organic solar cells based on J52:NoCA‐19 exhibited a power conversion efficiency as high as 12.26%, which is much higher than those of J52:NoCA‐17 (9.50%) and J52:NoCA‐18 (11.77%), mainly due to more efficient exciton dissociation, better and balanced charge mobility, suppressed recombination loss, shorter charge extraction time, longer charge carrier lifetimes, and more favorable blend film morphology. These findings demonstrate the great potential of asymmetric end‐group engineering in exploring low‐cost and high‐performance NFREAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Developing an artificial visual sensory system requires optoelectronic materials and devices that can mimic the behavior of biological synapses. Organic/polymeric semiconductors have emerged as promising candidates for optoelectronic synapses due to their tunable optoelectronic properties, mechanic flexibility, and biological compatibility. In this review, we discuss the recent progress in organic optoelectronic synaptic materials and devices, including their design principles, working mechanisms, and applications. We also highlight the challenges and opportunities in this field and provide insights into potential applications of these materials and devices in next‐generation artificial visual systems. By leveraging the advances in organic optoelectronic materials and devices, we can envision its future development in artificial intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic solar cells (OSCs) have attracted extensive attention from both academia and industry in recent years due to their remarkable improvement in power conversion efficiency (PCE). However, the Golden Triangle (the balance of efficiency‐stability‐cost) required for large‐scale industrialization of OSCs still remains a great challenge. Here, a new nonfused‐ring electron acceptor (NFREA) BF and its polymerized counterpart PBF were designed and synthesized, and their photovoltaic performance, storage stability and material cost were systematically investigated. When blended with a widely‐used polymer donor PBDB‐T, the PBF‐based all‐polymer solar cell (all‐PSC) displayed a record high PCE of 12.61% for polymerized NFREAs (PNFREAs) with an excellent stability (95.2% of initial PCE after 800 h storage), superior to the BF counterpart. Impressively, PBF‐based all‐PSC possesses the highest industrial figure‐of‐merit (i‐FOM) value of 0.309 based on an efficiency‐stability‐cost evaluation, in comparison to several representative OSC systems (such as PM6:Y6 and PBDB‐T:PZ1). This work provides an insight into the balance of efficiency, stability, and cost, and also indicates that the PNFREAs are promising materials toward the commercial application of OSCs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel passive devices such as all-optical diodes and all-optical logic gates require materials with appropriate both saturable and reverse saturable absorption properties. In this work, a series of GeSb4Te7 films were prepared by radio frequency magnetron sputtering and annealed at different temperatures to induce phase changes. Open-aperture Z-Scan experiments revealed that GeSb4Te7 films featured a large nonlinear absorption coefficient that varied with the extent of phase change induced by the annealing temperature. To understand the underlying reason, a three-level model was developed to explain the competition between ground-state absorption and excited-state absorption during the process. The large nonlinear absorption coefficient of GeSb4Te7 films ( β eff = - 20368.90 cm/GW) shows that ternary material demonstrates outstanding nonlinear optical absorption capability. Impressively, the annealing treatment induced microstructural changes in the GeSb4Te7 films that caused a transition from reverse saturable absorption to saturable absorption, offering great potential for innovative passive nonlinear optical devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive Summary: By employing thiazole and 4‐chlorothiazole as the A′ units, two A‐D‐A′‐D‐A type nonfused‐ring electron acceptors (NFREAs) Tz‐H and Tz‐Cl were designed and synthesized. Replacing thiazole in Tz‐H with 4‐chlorothiazole can not only remarkably shorten the synthetic route through C—H direct arylation but also enhance molecular planarity with the simultaneous incorporation of S···N and S···Cl noncovalently conformational locks (NoCLs). The photovoltaic devices based on PM6:Tz‐Cl exhibited a power conversion efficiency as high as 11.10%, much higher than that of PM6:Tz‐H (6.41%), mainly due to more efficient exciton dissociation, better and more balanced carrier mobility, less charge recombination, and more favorable morphology. These findings demonstrate the great potential of NoCLs in achieving low‐cost and high‐performance NFREAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of all‐polymer solar cells (all‐PSCs) have already exceeded 17%. However, the limited absorption range of an all‐polymer system results in significantly reduced short‐circuit current density (Jsc), which eventually influences the PCE improvement. To broaden the light absorption of polymer acceptors, herein, benzotriazole is introduced in the core unit of small molecule acceptors and thus two narrow‐bandgap polymer acceptors named PTz‐BO and PTz‐C11 featuring the same molecular backbone and different side‐chain length are synthesized. Compared with PTz‐C11, the PTz‐BO based‐all PSCs deliver a slightly reduced Jsc, a large open‐circuit voltage (Voc) and a low voltage loss below 0.50 V. Moreover, ternary all‐PSCs are constructed by introducing PTz‐C11 as a guest component. Benefiting from the reduced recombination, improved exciton generation and dissociation, and balanced charge transport, a high efficiency of 16.58% is obtained for the ternary all‐PSCs, with a high Jsc over 25 mA cm−2 without sacrificing the Voc. Such result represents the highest efficiency reported for benzotriazole‐based all‐PSCs in the literature thus far. This work demonstrates the great potential of benzotriazole for the synthesis of efficient narrow‐bandgap polymer acceptors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]