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Nature Materials (2026)
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Narrow-bandgap acceptors are the basis for achieving high short-circuit current density in organic solar cells; however, the lack of effective strategies to reduce energy loss under narrow-bandgap systems makes it challenging to solve the trade-off of open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current density. Here an acceptor Qx-Se-NF, featuring quinoxaline (Qx) central moiety, naphthyl-based terminal group (NF), and selenium (Se)-substituted central core, is synthesized, reaching a narrow bandgap of 1.31 eV. Theoretical calculations show that Qx-Se-NF exhibits low energetic disorder, which is beneficial for reducing energy loss. Furthermore, its strong aggregation properties tend to form a unique vertically segregated alloy structure in ternary systems, which is beneficial for increasing the short-circuit current density without sacrificing the open-circuit voltage. As a result, the ternary system achieved a certified power conversion efficiency of 21.01% with a low energy loss of 0.486 eV, providing a deep insight into the design of narrow-bandgap acceptors and their ternary systems.
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Source data are provided with this paper. The data and relevant information are available within the article and its Supplementary Information. Additional data are available from the corresponding authors on request. The X-ray crystallographic coordinates for structures reported in this study have been deposited at the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) under deposition numbers 2501605, 2501606 and 2479214. These data can be obtained free of charge from The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre via www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/data_request/cif.
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Z.W. acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 22135001). K.L. acknowledges financial support from the CAS Project for Young Scientists in Basic Research (grant number YSBR-102), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (grant number Z230018) and the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant number XDB0520102). L.Z. acknowledges financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 22473036). We thank the Advanced In-situ Characterization Facility of Molecular Condensed and Electronic Structures (AIC-MCES) for the TOF-SIMS measurements; R. Wang and G. Lu from Xi’an Jiaotong University for their help with the FLAS measurements; X. Dai and Y. Zou from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for their help with the ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy and LEIPS measurements; G. Zhao and H. Zhou from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology for their help with the transient photocurrent and transient photovoltage measurements; W. Wang from Peking University for the help with the atomic force microscopy measurements; and J. Zhang from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology for the help with the grazing-incidence X-ray scattering measurements.
These authors contributed equally: Jing Tao, Chi Zhang, Qiming Zhao, Chenyang Tian.
CAS Key Laboratory of Nanosystem and Hierarchical Fabrication, National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
Jing Tao, Chi Zhang, Qiming Zhao, Chenyang Tian, Ailing Tang, Dingding Qiu, Hao Zhang, Huijuan Bi, Wenjun Zou, Kun Lu, Lingyun Zhu & Zhixiang Wei
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
Jing Tao, Chi Zhang, Qiming Zhao, Chenyang Tian, Ailing Tang, Yao Zhao, Dingding Qiu, Hao Zhang, Wenjun Zou, Kun Lu, Lingyun Zhu & Zhixiang Wei
HyperPV Co. Ltd, Jiaxing, People’s Republic of China
Jin Fang
Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Science, Huairou Research Center, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China
Yao Zhao
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J.T. and K.L. designed and synthesized the Qx-based acceptors, performed material characterizations and prepared the first draft of the paper. C.Z. fabricated and characterized the devices and conducted the certification. C.T. fabricated the large-area flexible devices and modules. Q.Z. and L.Z. provided the theoretical calculations, analysed the data and wrote the corresponding part. J.F. and W.Z. helped to optimize the device and conduct the certification. Y.Z. helped to conduct the TOF-SIMS test. D.Q. and H.B. helped to synthesize the molecules. H.Z. helped to perform the in situ ultraviolet–visible absorption measurements and analyse the data. A.T. contributed to the data analysis and paper revision. K.L. and Z.W. conceived the idea, supervised and directed this project, and revised this paper. All authors contributed to discussing the results and commented on the paper.
Correspondence to Kun Lu, Lingyun Zhu or Zhixiang Wei.
The authors declare no competing interests.
Nature Materials thanks Kwanghee Lee, Ergang Wang and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Figs. 1–55, Tables 1–34, Notes 1–7, Methods and References.
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Tao, J., Zhang, C., Zhao, Q. et al. Narrow-bandgap acceptors with low energetic disorder achieve over 21% efficiency in organic solar cells. Nat. Mater. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-026-02589-4
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