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Creators/Authors contains: "Facchetti, Antonio"

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  1. Free, publicly-accessible full text available April 10, 2026
  2. Emerging wearable devices would benefit from integrating ductile photovoltaic light-harvesting power sources. In this work, we report a small-molecule acceptor (SMA), also known as a non–fullerene acceptor (NFA), designed for stretchable organic solar cell (s-OSC) blends with large mechanical compliance and performance. Blends of the organosilane-functionalized SMA BTP-Si4 with the polymer donor PNTB6-Cl achieved a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of >16% and ultimate strain (εu) of >95%. Typical SMAs suppress OSC blend ductility, but the addition of BTP-Si4 enhances it. Although BTP-Si4 is less crystalline than other SMAs, it retains considerable electron mobility and is highly miscible with PNTB6-Cl and is essential for enhancing εu. Thus,s-OSCs with PCE > 14% and operating normally under various deformations (>80% PCE retention under an 80% strain) were demonstrated. Analysis of several SMA-polymer blends revealed general molecular structure–miscibility–stretchability relationships for designing ductile blends. 
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    Free, publicly-accessible full text available January 24, 2026
  3. Organic solar cells (OSCs) using non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) afford exceptional photovoltaic performance metrics, however, their stability remains a significant challenge. Existing OSC stability studies focus on understanding degradation rate-performance relationships, improving interfacial layers, and suppressing degradative chemical reaction pathways. Nevertheless, there is a knowledge gap concerning how such degradation affects crystal structure, electronic states, and recombination dynamics that ultimately impact NFA performance. Here we seek a quantitative relationship between OSC metrics and blend morphology, trap density of states, charge carrier mobility, and recombination processes during the UV-light-induced degradation of PBDB-TF:Y6 inverted solar cells as the PCE (power conversion efficiency) falls from 17.3 to 5.0%. Temperature-dependent electrical and impedance measurements reveal deep traps at 0.48 eV below the conduction band that are unaffected by Y6 degradation, and shallow traps at 0.15 eV below the conduction band that undergo a three-fold density of states increase at the PCE degradation onset. Computational analysis correlates vinyl oxidation with a new trap state at 0.25 eV below the conduction band, likely involving charge transfer from the UV-absorbing ZnO electron transport layer. In-situ integrated photocurrent analysis and transient absorption spectroscopy reveal that these traps lower electron mobility and increase recombination rates during degradation. Grazing-incidence wide-angle x-ray scattering and computational analysis reveal that the degraded Y6 crystallite morphology is largely preserved but that <1% of degraded Y6 molecules cause OSC PCE performance degradation by ≈50%. Together the detailed electrical, impedance, morphological, ultrafast spectroscopic, matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-ToF) spectroscopy, and computational data reveal that the trap state energies and densities accompanying Y6 vinyl oxidation are primarily responsible for the PCE degradation in these operating NFA-OSCs. 
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  4. Abstract Flexible and stretchable bioelectronics provides a biocompatible interface between electronics and biological systems and has received tremendous attention for in situ monitoring of various biological systems. Considerable progress in organic electronics has made organic semiconductors, as well as other organic electronic materials, ideal candidates for developing wearable, implantable, and biocompatible electronic circuits due to their potential mechanical compliance and biocompatibility. Organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs), as an emerging class of organic electronic building blocks, exhibit significant advantages in biological sensing due to the ionic nature at the basis of the switching behavior, low driving voltage (<1 V), and high transconductance (in millisiemens range). During the past few years, significant progress in constructing flexible/stretchable OECTs (FSOECTs) for both biochemical and bioelectrical sensors has been reported. In this regard, to summarize major research accomplishments in this emerging field, this review first discusses structure and critical features of FSOECTs, including working principles, materials, and architectural engineering. Next, a wide spectrum of relevant physiological sensing applications, where FSOECTs are the key components, are summarized. Last, major challenges and opportunities for further advancing FSOECT physiological sensors are discussed. 
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  5. Abstract Chemical doping is an important approach to manipulating charge-carrier concentration and transport in organic semiconductors (OSCs)1–3and ultimately enhances device performance4–7. However, conventional doping strategies often rely on the use of highly reactive (strong) dopants8–10, which are consumed during the doping process. Achieving efficient doping with weak and/or widely accessible dopants under mild conditions remains a considerable challenge. Here, we report a previously undescribed concept for the photocatalytic doping of OSCs that uses air as a weak oxidant (p-dopant) and operates at room temperature. This is a general approach that can be applied to various OSCs and photocatalysts, yielding electrical conductivities that exceed 3,000 S cm–1. We also demonstrate the successful photocatalytic reduction (n-doping) and simultaneous p-doping and n-doping of OSCs in which the organic salt used to maintain charge neutrality is the only chemical consumed. Our photocatalytic doping method offers great potential for advancing OSC doping and developing next-generation organic electronic devices. 
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  6. Abstract New emerging low‐dimensional such as 0D, 1D, and 2D nanomaterials have attracted tremendous research interests in various fields of state‐of‐the‐art electronics, optoelectronics, and photonic applications due to their unique structural features and associated electronic, mechanical, and optical properties as well as high‐throughput fabrication for large‐area and low‐cost production and integration. Particularly, photodetectors which transform light to electrical signals are one of the key components in modern optical communication and developed imaging technologies for whole application spectrum in the daily lives, including X‐rays and ultraviolet biomedical imaging, visible light camera, and infrared night vision and spectroscopy. Today, diverse photodetector technologies are growing in terms of functionality and performance beyond the conventional silicon semiconductor, and low‐dimensional nanomaterials have been demonstrated as promising potential platforms. In this review, the current states of progress on the development of these nanomaterials and their applications in the field of photodetectors are summarized. From the elemental combination for material design and lattice structure to the essential investigations of hybrid device architectures, various devices and recent developments including wearable photodetectors and neuromorphic applications are fully introduced. Finally, the future perspectives and challenges of the low‐dimensional nanomaterials based photodetectors are also discussed. 
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  7. We report a novel strategy for developing an outstanding transparent p-type conducting oxide exhibiting a deep work function as well as a wide band gap by engineering the polarizability of a strongly correlated NiWO4
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