Toward High‐Performance Polymer Photovoltaic Devices for Low‐Power Indoor Applications

Abstract

This article describes the performance of organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices, incorporating three different polymer/fullerene derivative blends, under low‐level lighting conditions. The devices exhibit much higher power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) under indoor lighting conditions than they do under sunlight. The best‐performing device is capable of delivering a power output of 22.57 μW cm−2, corresponding to a PCE of 13.76%, under illumination with indoor lighting conditions at 500 lux. Increasing the open‐circuit voltage (Voc) of the OPV devices is the most critical factor for achieving high device performance for low‐power indoor applications. Therefore, the device power output will be maximized if we could obtain a larger energy difference between the highest occupied molecular orbital of the polymer donor and the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital of the electron acceptor, thereby ensuring a high value of Voc.

Silicon nanocrystal hybrid photovoltaic devices for indoor light energy harvesting

“…A typical fullerene-based OPV has been reported to exceed a PCE of 10% under a simulated indoor light source. [33][34][35][36][37][38][39] Also, the SiNC-HPVs can be a potential energy harvesting device for indoor IoT applications.…”

“…[28][29][30] In recent years, due to the rapid development of IoT (Internet of Things) related technology, the number of IoT devices has dramatically increased. 31,32 Many type of printable PV devices such as OPVs, [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42] dye-sensitized solar cells 43,44 and perovskite solar cells 45,46 have been explored for indoor applications, OPVs are especially expected to be used as an energy harvesting system for IoT devices because of their potential for low power operation, independent and distributed applications, high portability and device designability. In this study, we successfully demonstrated SiNC-HPVs with PCE as high as 9.7% and power density of 34.0 mW cm À2 under standard indoor light irradiation (1000 lx).…”

Virtual Screening of Conjugated Polymers for Organic Photovoltaic Devices Using Support Vector Machines and Ensemble Learning

“…Organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices have been attracting much attention because of their advantageous properties, including light weight, mechanical flexibility, low material and fabrication cost, and short energy payback times [1][2][3][4]. Apart from traditional solar panels, possible applications of OPV devices also include power generators for wearable electronics, portable devices, and the Internet of things (IoTs) [5][6][7][8][9][10]. The state-of-the-art OPV devices are prepared based on the concept of "bulk heterojunction."…”

Porphyrin-based thick-film bulk-heterojunction solar cells for indoor light harvesting

“…where ݊ is the ideality factor, ݇ is the Boltzmann constant, ܶ is the absolute temperature, ‫ݍ‬ is the elementary charge, ‫ܫ‬ is the photocurrent, and ‫ܫ‬ is the dark current. [11] From Eq. 1, there are two main observations: (1) an OPV device with a small dark current gives rise to a large V oc .…”

“…Therefore, to achieve a large V oc at ambient lights, a BHJ that gives a large V oc under 1-Sun is essential. [11,12] high PCEs, the porphyrin-based BHJ cells also exhibit superior performances under thick films (~200nm) and enhanced stabilities. The origins of these superior properties were examined, and they can be attributed to low electronic disorders of these materials when compared to their polymer counterparts.…”