Broadening the absorption bandwidth of polymer solar cells by incorporating multiple absorber donors into the bulk-heterojunction active layer is an attractive means of resolving the narrow absorption of organic semiconductors. However, this leads to a much more complicated system, and previous efforts have met with only limited success. Here, several dual-donor and multi-donor bulk-heterojunct...

Substituting olefinic for acetylenic pi-spacers in anthracene-based conjugated semiconductor donors leads to appreciable increases in the power conversion efficiencies of the resulting bulk heterojunction solar cells.

8:30 AM Plenary Low Cost “Plastic” Solar Cells: A Dream or Reality???: Alan Heeger1; 1University of California, Santa Barbara Polymer solar cells with power conversion efficiencies in excess of 5% are demonstrated using bulk heterojunction materials. Spatial Fourier transform methods have been used to study and optimize the morphology. Light harvesting has been improved by using a novel low-ban...

Polymer solar cells are a promising alternative to more traditional silicon solar cells. This is mainly due to the good solubility of organic semiconductors, which makes it possible to produce large-scale and mechanically flexible devices with roll-to-roll processes. To be able to fully utilise this promising technique the stability of the materials, used in these devices, must be guaranteed. T...

We demonstrate the basic operation of an organic/inorganic hybrid single nanowire solar cell. End-functionalized oligo- and polythiophenes were grafted onto ZnO nanowires to produce p-n heterojunction nanowires. The hybrid nanostructures were characterized via absorption and electron microscopy to determine the optoelectronic properties and to probe the morphology at the organic/inorganic inter...

The technological attraction in organic solar cells is their compatibility to printing processes. However, up to today, nearly no literature on "printed" organic solar cells have been published and the major body of the research work was done by spin coating or blading techniques. Transferring the spin-coating or doctor blading process currently used for the fabrication of bulk heterojunction s...

The contact between the polymer active layer and the electrode is one the most critical interfaces in polymer solar cells. In this article, we report the progress of interface engineering in polymer solar cell research, where the multiple functions of the interfacial materials will be discussed. The vertical composition profile in polymer:fullerene blends is an emerging topic, and the interlaye...

A tandem solar cell device whose sub-cells are fabricated exclusively from small molecules (SMs) through both solution-processed and vacuum-processed deposition techniques is described. The front sub-cell's active layer consists of a bulk heterojunction (BHJ) DPP(TBFu)2:PC70BM device while the back cell has a typical bilayer structure employing a 2,4-bis[4-(N,N-diisobutylamino)-2,6-dihydroxyphe...

This paper focuses on nano-morphology-controlled small-molecule organic solar cells without solvent treatment for high power-conversion efficiencies (PCEs). The maximum high PCE reaches up to 7.22% with a bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) thickness of 320 nm. This high efficiency was obtained by eliminating solvent additives such as 1,8-diiodooctane (DIO) to find an alternative way to control the domai...