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Nature Reviews Clean Technology volume 1, page 825 (2025)
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Conversion of light into electricity using organic photovoltaics (OPVs) requires a cascade of ultrafast electronic processes. For an electron donor–acceptor OPV, this process begins with the generation of bound electron–hole pairs (which takes around ~10–15 s), followed by the formation of intermediate charge transfer states to dissociate charge pairs at the donor–acceptor interface (~10–12 s), ending with the diffusion of charges for extraction (~10–3 s). These processes compete with recombination pathways, which reduce overall device efficiency for charge extraction. Improvements to OPVs therefore require devices designed to encourage the correct processes and discourage loss mechanisms. Time-resolved monitoring of these ultrafast processes can reveal mechanistic insight behind device operation and thus aid with improved device design.
Central to any set-up is the ultrafast laser system, which enables generation of both pump and probe pulses from the fundamental near-infrared beam. For the pump, the fundamental is used to power an optical parametric amplifier, which generates a wavelength-tunable pump source spanning the ultraviolet to the near-infrared range. The remainder of the fundamental pulse is focused on to a birefringent medium, such as a sapphire or CaF2 crystal, to generate a broadband white light supercontinuum (~350–1,600 nm) for the probe beam. Suitable temporal delay between the pump and probe is obtained by guiding the probe beam onto a motorized optical delay stage, which generates a time delay in the probe pulse relative to the pump of up to several nanoseconds. Following transmission of both beams through the sample, the probe beam is then coupled into a spectrograph for detection.
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The author thanks A. Gillett and L. Torrente-Murciano for their useful suggestions during the curation of this article.
Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Tariq Hussein
Cavendish Laboratory, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Tariq Hussein
PubMed Google Scholar
Correspondence to Tariq Hussein.
The author declares no competing interests.
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Hussein, T. Improving organic photovoltaic performance with ultrafast snapshots. Nat. Rev. Clean Technol. 1, 825 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44359-025-00106-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44359-025-00106-5
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Nature Reviews Clean Technology (Nat. Rev. Clean Technol.)
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