High-efficiency polymer solar cells with small photon energy loss

Kazuaki Kawashima, Yasunari Tamai, Hideo Ohkita (), Itaru Osaka () and Kazuo Takimiya ()
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Kazuaki Kawashima: Graduate School of Engineering, Hiroshima University
Yasunari Tamai: Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Katsura
Hideo Ohkita: Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University, Katsura
Itaru Osaka: RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS)
Kazuo Takimiya: Graduate School of Engineering, Hiroshima University

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract A crucial issue facing polymer-based solar cells is how to manage the energetics of the polymer/fullerene blends to maximize short-circuit current density and open-circuit voltage at the same time and thus the power conversion efficiency. Here we demonstrate that the use of a naphthobisoxadiazole-based polymer with a narrow bandgap of 1.52 eV leads to high open-circuit voltages of approximately 1 V and high-power conversion efficiencies of ∼9% in solar cells, resulting in photon energy loss as small as ∼0.5 eV, which is much smaller than that of typical polymer systems (0.7–1.0 eV). This is ascribed to the high external quantum efficiency for the systems with a very small energy offset for charge separation. These unconventional features of the present polymer system will inspire the field of polymer-based solar cells towards further improvement of power conversion efficiencies with both high short-circuit current density and open-circuit voltage.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10085

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