Organic solar cell progress

27 September 2012 – Polyera Corporation has achieved a certified world-record 5.2% efficient fully-polymeric organic solar cell in an inverted bulk heterojunction architecture combining its new ActivInk(R) PV2400 donor and NV2400 acceptor materials. These results significantly improve upon previously reported records of less than 3% for fully-polymeric cells. The device performance was certified by Newport Corporation’s PV cell lab.

The results are important for demonstrating the potential of eliminating traditionally used fullerene-based acceptor materials, which have several drawbacks including high cost, difficulty in production scaling, morphology instabilities and poor light absorption.

"While the best performing organic solar cells continue to use fullerenes, based on our latest results and our current understanding, we believe that in the future non-fullerene acceptors will enable higher efficiencies and better stability than can currently be achieved with fullerene-based cells Such non-fullerene, polymeric acceptors will also be important to tailor the photoactive blend absorption spectrum, which is critical in the rapidly developing field of tandem OPV," Dr. Antonio Facchetti, co-founder and CTO of Polyera, says.