Delocalization boosts charge separation in organic solar cells

Organic solar cells (OSCs) utilizing π-conjugated polymers have attracted widespread interest over the past three decades because of their potential advantages, including low weight, thin film flexibility, and low-cost manufacturing. However, their power conversion efficiency (PCE) has been far below that of inorganic analogs. Geminate recombination of charge transfer excitons is a major loss process in OSCs. This paper reviews our recent progress in using transient absorption spectroscopy to understand geminate recombination in bulk heterojunction OSCs, including the impact of polymer crystallinity on charge generation and dissociation mechanisms in nonfullerene acceptor-based OSCs. The first example of a high PCE with a small photon energy loss is also presented. The importance of delocalization of the charge wave function to suppress geminate recombination is highlighted by this focus review