Low Bandgap Organic Semiconductors for Photovoltaic Applications

Abstract

Photovoltaic is one of the best low-cost alternative energy sources. In this paper, organic semiconductors were explored as light harvesters due to their extraordinary properties, but initially, the scientific community focused on synthesizing the large bandgap organic semiconductors, which were unsuitable for photovoltaic applications. Wide bandgap organic semiconductors can capture light only from the UV–Vis region of the solar spectrum, thus showing solar cells’ power conversion efficiency (PCE) of less than 5%. By reducing the bandgap, organic semiconductors can show good compatibility with the air mass (AM) of 1.5 solar spectrums. So, the attention came toward synthesizing low bandgap semiconductors, which led to the enhancement of PCE from 5% to 17%. This review summarizes the overall development of the last 15 years in the field of organic photovoltaic semiconductors. The significant parameters in organic semiconductors are their bandgap, the position of the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO), and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) that can easily be tuned chemically by molecular designing. One of the issues in organic photovoltaic solar devices is the need for absorbers with a narrow bandgap to maximize power conversion efficiencies to a great extent. Moreover, several factors, such as conjugation length, bond length alteration, intermolecular interaction, donor–acceptor charge transfer, planarity, and physical states, are responsible for tuning the bandgap. This review also classifies low bandgap semiconductors based on the core skeleton with their bandgaps, structures, and power conversion efficiencies.