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Transparent polymer solar cells employing a layered light-trapping architecture

2013; Nature Portfolio; Volume: 7; Issue: 12 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1038/nphoton.2013.276

1749-4893

Rafael Betancur, Pablo Romero‐Gómez, Alberto Martínez‐Otero, Xavier Elias, Marc Maymó, Jordi Martorell,

Perovskite Materials and Applications

Organic solar cells have unique properties that make them very attractive as a renewable energy source. Of particular interest are semi-transparent cells, which have the potential to be integrated into building façades yet not completely block light. However, making organic cells transparent limits the metal electrode thickness to a few nanometres, drastically reducing its reflectivity and the device photon-harvesting capacity. Here, we propose and implement an ad hoc path for light-harvesting recovery to bring the photon-to-charge conversion up to almost 80% that of its opaque counterpart. We report semi-transparent PTB7:PC71BM cells that exhibit 30% visible light transmission and 5.6% power conversion efficiency. Non-periodic photonic crystals are used to trap near-infrared and near-ultraviolet photons. By modifying the layer structure it is possible to tune the device colour without significantly altering cell performance. Transparent polymer solar cells are demonstrated that can transmit 30% of visible light and operate with a power conversion efficiency of 5.6%. The cells employ photonic crystals to trap ultraviolet and infrared light.