Recent advances in non-fullerene organic solar cells: from lab to fab

Recently, the laboratory-scale power conversion efficiency (PCE) of organic solar cells (OSCs) has reached 18% in single-junction devices due to a combination of the rapid development of novel light-harvesting/interfacial materials and device engineering. Thus, such materials show considerable application prospects in the near future. It is of great importance to develop economically achievable, highly efficient, thickness-tolerant photovoltaic materials and processing methods for the manufacture of large flexible solar panels. Research in this area has been conducted from the very early stages of the development of organic photovoltaic materials and has never stopped. Herein, we focus on the fundamental requirements of photoactive materials and the processing methods used for commercialization based on the recent advances of the booming PCEs, to provide guidelines for future material design and mass production. In this review, the progress toward high-performance materials is briefly summarized, and the essential requirements for large-area printing modules, such as thickness tolerance and cost issues, and the latest findings on non-fullerene OSCs are introduced. In particular, important advances in the material design and device optimization of thick-film OSCs have been discussed. Significant advances in the processing methods used to prepare efficient non-fullerene OSCs and the challenges for the industrialization of OSCs are presented. Furthermore, the prospects and opportunities in this emerging field of research are also discussed.