2007/11/01 by Alex C. Mayer, Shawn R. Scully, Brian E. Hardin +2 · 4 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · #Organic Electronics and Photovoltaics #Conducting polymers and applications #Nanowire Synthesis and Applications #Polymer #Materials science #Throughput #Nanotechnology #Nanoscopic scale #Diffusion #Polymer solar cell #Energy conversion efficiency #Solar energy #Exciton #Low energy #Hybrid solar cell #Solar cell #Optoelectronics #Computer science #Telecommunications #Electrical engineering #Physics #Engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/s1369-7021(07)70276-6
openalex publication_date 2007/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02
A significant fraction of the cost of solar panels comes from the photoactive materials and sophisticated, energy-intensive processing technologies. Recently, it has been shown that the inorganic components can be replaced by semiconducting polymers capable of achieving reasonably high power conversion efficiencies. These polymers are inexpensive to synthesize and can be solution-processed in a roll-to-roll fashion with high throughput. Inherently poor polymer properties, such as low exciton diffusion lengths and low mobilities, can be overcome by nanoscale morphology. We discuss polymer-based solar cells, paying particular attention to device design and potential improvements.