MOLYCELL: Molecular orientation, low band gap and new hybrid device concepts for the improvement of flexible organic solar cells

• Unité de recherche: PCRD EU
• Numéro de projet: 03.0681-2
• Titre du projet anglais: MOLYCELL: Molecular orientation, low band gap and new hybrid device concepts for the improvement of flexible organic solar cells

Mots-clé (Anglais)

Plastic solar cells; nanostructured material; organic electronic materials; photochemistry; molecular diodes; conjugated polymers; low band gap polymers

Autre Numéro de projet (Anglais)

EU project number: 502783

Programme de recherche (Anglais)

EU-programme: 6. Frame Research Programme - 1.6.1.2.4

Description succincte (Anglais)

See abstract

Résumé des résultats (Abstract) (Anglais)

Organic solar cells promise a strong cost reduction of photovoltaics (PV) if fast improvements of the power efficiency and the lifetime can be achieved. There are still some crucial obstacles to overcome before a large-scale production of plastic solar cells can be considered. The latter is the clear aim of all industrial partners here involved. The feasibility of this approach will be proven with a new generation of organic PV having better efficiency (5% on 1cm2 glass substrate and > 4% on 1cm2 flexible substrate), longer lifetime and a production cost far below those of competing technologies based on silicon. To reach this goal, the following questions will be worked out in parallel: 1.Design and synthesis of new materials to overcome the large mismatch between the currently available polymer materials absorption characteristics and the solar emission spectrum and also to improve the mediocre charge transport properties. 2.Development of two device concepts to improve efficiencies: all-organic solar cells and nanocrystal/organic hybrid solar cells
All-organic solar cells: Devices will be based on donor-acceptor bulk heterojunction built by blending of two organic materials serving as electron donor (hole semiconductor, low band gap polymers) and electron acceptor (n-type conductor, here soluble C60 derivative) under the form of an homogeneous blend and sandwiching the organic matrix between two electrodes. One of these electrodes is transparent and the other is usually an opaque metal electrode. Two concepts will be developed to improve efficiencies: a) an innovative junction concept based on the orientation of polar molecules and b) a multi-junction bulk donor-acceptor heterojunction concept.
Nanocrystal/organic hybrid solar cells
Devices will be based upon solid-state heterojunctions between nanocrystalline metal oxides and molecular/polymeric hole conductors. Two strategies will be addressed for light absorption: the sensitisation of the heterojunction...

Références bases de données (Anglais)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 03.0681-2