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Fullerenes in Photovoltaics

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Handbook of Fullerene Science and Technology

Abstract

Fullerenes are among the most widely used n-type organic semiconducting materials and have been extensively investigated in a variety of applications. Fullerene materials have frequently been used in photovoltaic applications thanks to their excellent electrical properties, which include ultrafast photoinduced charge transfer and low reorganization energy. Accordingly, fullerene materials provide superior performance in both organic solar cells (OSCs) and perovskite solar cells (PSCs) despite playing different roles in these two types of cells. To date, fullerene organic photovoltaics have achieved power conversion efficiency (PCE) reaching 21.3%, up from the PCE of 3.2% reported for the first fullerene derivative photovoltaics in 1995. In OSCs, fullerenes are used as electron acceptors and are mixed with an electron donor to fabricate the active layer of the device. Consequently, the energy level and molecular packing of fullerenes are major concerns and frequent subjects of investigation. In PSCs, on the other hand, a perovskite-structured compound is required in the active layer, so fullerenes are used as electron transport materials or dopants rather than as electron acceptors. For these roles in PSCs, attention shifted to electron carrier mobility, interlayer morphology, and passivation effects. This chapter discusses in depth the recent progress of fullerenes in both OSCs and PSCs from a broad perspective, covering the fundamentals of photovoltaics, fullerene materials design, and advanced techniques that have recently been developed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    H.-S. Lin & Y. Matsuo

  2. Department of Chemical System Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan

    H.-S. Lin & Y. Matsuo

Authors
  1. H.-S. Lin
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  2. Y. Matsuo
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Correspondence to Y. Matsuo .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Xing Lu

  2. University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Takeshi Akasaka

  3. Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Zdeněk Slanina

Section Editor information

  1. State Key Laboratory of Materials Processing and Die & Mould Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology , School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan, China

    Xing Lu

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Lin, HS., Matsuo, Y. (2022). Fullerenes in Photovoltaics. In: Lu, X., Akasaka, T., Slanina, Z. (eds) Handbook of Fullerene Science and Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-8994-9_37

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