ABSTRACT
In the past decades, polymer solar cells (PSCs) composed of a conjugated polymer or small molecule as donor and a fullerene derivative as acceptor have attracted great attention from chemical, physical, and material scientists. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of single heterojunction PSCs has reached levels over 10%. Although this value is still lower than that of inorganic-based solar cells, and also likely not high enough for commercial applications, performance continues to increase at a steady and rapid pace. PSCs have witnessed a rapid development, which was mainly achieved by designing and synthesizing novel polymer donor materials and developing novel device architectures and processing techniques. However, less attention has been devoted to the development of fullerene acceptor materials, an aspect which is very important for further improving the PCE of single-and multiple-junction PSCs. Therefore, we will give a summary about the history, status, and future prospect of fullerene acceptor materials in this chapter. In addition,
inorganic nanoparticle acceptors for application in hybrid organic/ inorganic bulk heterojunction solar cells will be summarized.
