Related Experiment Video
Updated: Sep 18, 2025

Morphology Control for Fully Printable Organic–Inorganic Bulk-heterojunction Solar Cells Based on a Ti-alkoxide and Semiconducting Polymer
Published on: January 10, 2017
Charge carrier recombination and voltage losses in organic solar cells
Yi Lin1, Zaifei Ma1, Zheng Tang1
1State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Center for Advanced Low-dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, P. R. China. mazaifei@dhu.edu.cn.
Abstract:
The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells (OSCs) has surpassed 20%, driven by the rapid advancement of non-fullerene acceptor materials, which have enhanced solar harvesting quantum efficiency and short-circuit current density. However, the performance of OSCs still lags behind that of traditional inorganic and perovskite solar cells, primarily due to significant voltage losses caused by the fast recombination of charge carriers. These voltage losses can be classified into radiative and non-radiative components, which are further linked to the decay dynamics of singlet excitons, triplet excitons, and charge transfer state excitons. This review provides a comprehensive overview of experimental observations and theoretical studies on voltage losses in OSCs, as well as the underlying charge carrier dynamics. Additionally, it discusses strategies to mitigate voltage losses and highlights promising approaches to further enhance the performance of OSCs.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Carrier Generation and Recombination
This process is given by the generation rate G and is efficient due to the conservation of momentum between the valence band maximum and conduction band minimum.
Indirect generation involves an...
P-N junction
Oxidation and Reduction of Organic Molecules
The removal of an electron from a molecule, results in a...
Carrier Transport
Drift Current:
The drift of charge carriers is started by an external electric field (E). Charged particles, such as electrons and holes, experience an acceleration between collisions with lattice atoms. For electrons, this results in a drift velocity (vd) given by:
Thermal and Photochemical Electrocyclic Reactions: Overview
Electron Carriers
Over the many stages of cellular respiration, glucose breaks down into carbon dioxide and water. Electron carriers pick up electrons lost by glucose in these reactions, temporarily storing and releasing them into the electron...

