Hot excitons - are they real in efficient organic solar cells?

Our latest Nature Materials paper shows that hot exciton effects are non-existent in PCPDTBT and PC60BM blends, at least within the given visible range of photon energies.

The same is true in several other efficient polymer-based organic solar cells blends, such as PCDTBT blends.

Having said that, in the past I reported the energy dependent exciton dissociation myself, but it was in pristine polymers.

Therefore, it is possible that in inefficient organic solar cells there might be photon energy dependence of photocarrier generation.

Further research following our work of IQE measurements aiming is required to conclude on the importance of hot-excitons. Personally, I believe the community should dedicate more attention to charge transport and electrical conduction because regardless of the presence of hot or excitons :), if these systems are like wood (non-conducting), they are useless!