Polymer Solar Cell

Polymer solar cell
A polymer solar cell is a type of flexible solar cell made with polymers, large molecules with
repeating structural units, that produce electricity from sunlight by the photovoltaic effect.
Polymer solar cells include organic solar cells (also called "plastic solar cells"). They are one
type of thin film solar cell, others include the more stableamorphous silicon solar cell.
The plastic used in organic solar cells has low production costs in high volumes. Combined
with the flexibility of organic molecules, organic solar cells are potentially cost-effective for
photovoltaic applications. Molecular engineering (e.g. changing the length and functional
group of polymers) can change the energy gap, which allows chemical change in these
materials. The optical absorption coefficient of organic molecules is high, so a large amount
of light can be absorbed with a small amount of materials. The main disadvantages
associated with organic photovoltaic cells are low efficiency, low stability and low strength
compared to inorganic photovoltaic cells.
Physics
A photovoltaic cell is a specialized semiconductor diode that converts visible light into direct
current(DC) electricity. Some photovoltaic cells convert infrared (IR) or ultraviolet (UV)
radiation into DC. A common characteristic of both the small molecules and polymers (Fig 1)
used in photovoltaics is that they all have large conjugated systems.
Device physics
Polymer solar cells usually consist of an electron- or hole-blocking layer on top of an indium
tin oxide (ITO) conductive glass followed by electron donor and an electron acceptor (in the
case of bulk heterojunction solar cells), a hole or electron blocking layer, and
metal electrode on top. The nature and order of the blocking layers as well as the nature of
the metal electrode depends on whether the cell follows a regular or an inverted device
architecture. In an inverted cell, the electric charges exit the device in the opposite direction
as in a normal device because the positive and negative electrodes are reversed. Inverted
cells can utilize cathodes out of a more suitable material; inverted OPVs enjoy longer
lifetimes than regularly structured OPVs, but they typically dont reach efficiencies as high as
regular OPVs.[6]
Organic photovoltaics are made of electron donor and electron acceptor materials rather
than semiconductor p-n junctions. The molecules forming the electron donor region
of organic PV cells, where exciton electron-hole pairs are generated, are generally
conjugated polymers possessing delocalized electrons that result from carbon p orbital
hybridization. These electrons can be excited by light in or near the visible part of the
spectrum from the molecule's highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) to the lowest
unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO), denoted by a -* transition. The energy bandgap
between these orbitals determines which wavelength(s) of light can be absorbed.
Unlike in an inorganic crystalline PV cell material, with its band structure and delocalized
electrons, excitons in organic photovoltaics are strongly bound with an energy between 0.1
and 1.4 eV. This strong binding occurs because electronic wave functions in organic
molecules are more localized, and electrostatic attraction can thus keep the electron and
hole together as an exciton. The electron and hole can be dissociated by providing an
interface across which the chemical potential of electrons decreases. The material that
absorbs the photon is the donor, and the material acquiring the electron is called the
acceptor. In Fig. 2, the polymer chain is the donor and the fullerene is the acceptor. Even
after dissociation, the electron and hole may still be joined as a "geminate pair", and
an electric field is then required to separate them. The electron and hole must be collected at
contacts. If charge carrier mobility is insufficient, the carriers will not reach the contacts, and
instead recombine at trap sites or remain in the device as undesirable space charges that
oppose the flow of new carriers. The latter problem can occur if electron and hole mobilities
are not matched. In that case, space-charge limited photocurrent (SCLP) hampers device
performance.
Organic photovoltaics can be fabricated with an active polymer and a fullerene-based
electron acceptor. Illumination of this system by visible light leads to electron transfer from
the polymer to a fullerene molecule. As a result, the formation of a
photoinduced quasiparticle, or polaron (P+), occurs on the polymer chain and the fullerene
becomes a radical anion (C
60). Polarons are highly mobile and can diffuse away.

Polymer Solar Cell

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