A single‐junction polymer solar cell with an efficiency of 10.1% is demonstrated by using deterministic aperiodic nanostructures for broadband light harvesting with optimum charge extraction. The performance enhancement is ascribed to the self‐enhanced absorption due to collective effects, including pattern‐induced anti‐reflection and light scattering, as well as surface plasmonic resonance, together with a minimized recombination probability.

Simutaneously high open circuit voltage and high short circuit current density is a big challenge for achieving high efficiency polymer solar cells due to the excitonic nature of organic semdonductors. Herein, we developed a trialkylsilyl substituted 2D-conjugated polymer with the highest occupied molecular orbital level down-shifted by Si–C bond interaction. The polymer solar cells obtained by pairing this polymer with a non-fullerene acceptor demonstrated a high power conversion efficiency of 11.41% with both high open circuit voltage of 0.94 V and high short circuit current density of 17.32 mA cm⁻² benefitted from the complementary absorption of the donor and acceptor, and the high hole transfer efficiency from acceptor to donor although the highest occupied molecular orbital level difference between the donor and acceptor is only 0.11 eV. The results indicate that the alkylsilyl substitution is an effective way in designing high performance conjugated polymer photovoltaic materials.

Polymer solar cells (PSCs) are composed of a blend film of a conjugated polymer donor and a soluble fullerene derivative acceptor sandwiched between a PEDOT : PSS coated ITO positive electrode and a low workfunction metal negative electrode. The conjugated polymer donor and the fullerene derivative acceptor are the key photovoltaic materials for high performance PSCs. For the acceptors, although [6,6]-phenyl-C₆₁-butyric acid methyl ester (PC₆₀BM) and its corresponding C₇₀ derivative PC₇₀BM are dominantly used as the acceptors in PSC at present, several series of new fullerene derivatives with higher-lying LUMO energy level and better solubility were reported in recent years for further improving the power conversion efficiency of the PSCs. In this perspective paper, we reviewed the recent research progress on the new fullerene derivative acceptors, including various PC₆₀BM-like C₆₀ derivatives, PC₆₀BM bisadduct, PC₇₀BM bisadduct, indene-C₆₀ bisadduct and indene-C₇₀ bisadduct, trimetallic nitride endohedral fullerenes and other C₆₀ derivatives with multi side chains. The synthesis and physicochemical properties of PC₆₀BM and PC₇₀BM were also introduced considering the importance of the two fullerene acceptors.