Molecular insights lead to improvements in organic solar cells

This discovery by a King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)-led team is expected to lead to applications including building-integrated photovoltaic windows and net-zero greenhouses. The team’s findings are detailed in Joule.

Organic solar cells are lightweight, flexible, quasi-transparent and can be manufactured at large scale. Efforts to boost power conversion efficiencies have led researchers to introduce Y-NFAs in the active layer of these devices.

Y-NFAs have broad absorption spectra, tuneable energy levels and excellent charge transport properties, making them ideal components for organic photovoltaics, said Han Xu, a PhD student at KAUST.

The research team has produced devices with efficiencies of 19 per cent, but the relationship between their molecular structure and stability is unclear. Steady performance of Y-NFA-based solar cells under real-world operating conditions also remains elusive, hindering the commercialisation of these devices.

As well as efficiency, the team said stability is critical when evaluating solar cells as ambient moisture and oxygen, light exposure and heat all influence the lifetime of a device.