High-Throughput Optical Screening for Efficient Semitransparent Organic Solar Cells

By Ruoxi Xia, Christoph J. Brabec, H. Yip, Yong Cao. Joule, 2019

170 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Summary The realization of semitransparent photovoltaics (ST-PVs) with optimal power conversion efficiency (PCE) and visible light transmittance (VLT) is an important step toward new applications such as power-generating windows for buildings and automobiles. A high-performing ST-PV should be wavelength selective, which best utilizes the ultraviolet (UV) and near-infrared (NIR) photons for photocurrent generation while balancing the absorption and transmission of visible photons. Semitransparent organic solar cells (STOSCs), coupled with wavelength-selective, one-dimensional photonic crystals (PCs), can meet such criteria, as organic semiconductors can achieve localized NIR absorption and PCs can further optimize device optical properties. Herein, by introducing a high-throughput optical model, we simulated over tens of millions of device configurations for PC-enhanced STOSCs to investigate their optical properties. Computationally guided fabrication of PC-enhanced PTB7-Th:IEICO-4F STOSC exhibited nearly 11% PCE and 30% VLT. The results exhibit the wide potential applications of high-throughput optical engineering, especially as related to designs including multi-objective and multi-layer thickness optimizations.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/25fcf1c4db5d93c356504b9edc81160ac1d6fbbd