Advances and Prospects for Semitransparent Organic Photovoltaics

Organic semiconductors exhibit discontinuous absorption spectra owing to the inherent characteristics of molecular orbitals, which enables organic photovoltaics (OPVs) to have a promising application: semitransparent OPVs (ST-OPVs). Benefiting from the materials development and device engineering, the performance of ST-OPVs has rapidly progressed, achieving 12.19% power conversion efficiency (PCE) and 49.62% average visible transmittance (AVT) for small active area devices and 6.7% PCE and 32.9% AVT for 100 cm2 large-area modules. This Perspective overviews recent progress in ST-OPVs, detailing innovative strategies in active layer design, transparent electrodes, interface engineering, and optical management. Facing the upcoming application requirements for ST-OPVs, the advancements of large-area, stable ST-OPVs as well as the studies on application potential and benefits of ST-OPVs are also covered. Lastly, the key challenges that need to be addressed and research directions facing the future commercialization of ST-OPVs are also discussed.