Project R-12155

Narrowing the gap – Optimizing donor and acceptor materials for truly transparent organic photovoltaics (Research)

Moving global energy consumption away from fossil fuels requires innovative and cost-effective renewable energy technologies. Photovoltaics (PV) can fulfil this need many times over if deployed over a large enough area. However, if we only apply the current PV technologies for the required new solar installations, this will require a lot of scarce space. An important question to address is hence how we can adjust the generation of solar power into the available space, for example through value-added applications such as energyharvesting windows. On the other hand, nearly 50% of all solar energy is situated in the near-infrared spectral region, which calls for research and development on near-infrared PV materials. Organic semiconductors are ideally suited to take up this role as their absorption features can readily be tuned by clever molecular design. This requires to 'narrow the optical gap' of the organic molecules. In this project, we will focus on the tailored design and synthesis of novel near-infrared absorbing electron donor polymers and nonfullerene electron acceptors to be combined in the photoactive layer of the envisaged organic solar cells. Whereas past efforts mostly focused on semi-transparent organic photovoltaics, we aim at truly transparent devices and modules without aesthetic or design constraints. As such, we will clearly move beyond merely academic insights toward industrially relevant findings with an economic and societal added value.

01 November 2021 - 30 September 2024