Sequential Processing of Organic Solar Cells from Environmentally Friendly Inks

Research question

Developing environmentally friendly coating strategies that promote highly efficient organic solar cells with long-term operational lifetime is the overarching goal of the project. These strategies include the elimination of hazardous solvents and the replacement of complex blend-borne film morphologies by stable bilayer-like architectures. As an ideal structure we propose the “corrugated heterojunction” (CHJ), which consists of a pure donor (D) and a pure acceptor (A) layer at the hole and electron collecting electrodes, respectively, and between them an interpenetrating network of D and A phases. Such a device structure is expected to improve both charge generation and transport and minimize losses by charge recombination. Moreover, the absence of mixed phases is expected to yield robust film morphologies and hence organic solar cells with longer lifetime.

We will pursue two processing routes: sequential deposition and hybrid deposition. In both routes one material is deposited first from solution.

Sustainability aspects

 The sustainability aspects of this project can be formulated in three areas: 1) clean, affordable and locally available electricity from photovoltaics, 2) low energy and material consumption in the organic solar cells fabrication processes, and 3) Mitigating chemical hazards by replacing toxic solvents by health and environmentally friendly ones.