Polymer solar cell Totally Explained

Everything about Polymer Solar Cell totally explained

Polymer solar cells are a type of solar cell: they produce electricity from sunlight. A relatively novel technology, they're being researched by universities, national laboratories and several companies around the world.

Fig. 1. The scheme of plastic solar cells. PET - PolyEthyleneTerephtalate, ITO - Indium Tin Oxide, PEDOT - Poly(3,4-EthyleneDiOxyThiophene), Al - Aluminium.]]

Currently, many solar cells in the world are made from a refined, highly purified silicon crystal, similar to those used in the manufacture of integrated circuits and computer chips. The high cost of these silicon solar cells and their complex production process has generated interest in developing alternative photovoltaic technologies.
Compared to silicon-based devices, polymer solar cells are lightweight (which is important for small autonomous sensors), disposable, inexpensive to fabricate, flexible, designable on the molecular level, and have little potential for negative environmental impact.
It was shown in the 90s that the plastic solar cell can be successfully realized as "bulk heterojunctions" between an organic polymer and organic molecule as electron acceptor. Fullerene embedded into conjugated polymer are usually used for such purposes (see Fig. 1). Plastic solar cell technology appeared to be easy to mass-produce and its cost is roughly one-third of that of traditional silicon solar cell technology, because the polymers and fullerene used in its construction are commercially available.

Ultimately solar energy conversed by polymer solar cells can be extensively used in both the commercial and private sectors. There are such a wide variety of potential applications, for example cars equipped with solar energy engine instead of diesel and gas ones, handy TV, phones, etc.
   At the moment, an open question is to what degree polymer solar cells can commercially compete with silicon solar cells. Now the silicon solar cell industry has the important industrial advantage of being able to leverage the general silicon infrastructure developed for the computer industry. Besides, the present efficiency of polymer solar cells lies near 5 percent. However, it can be doubled in a very short period of time and reach ca. 15 - 20 percent within 15–20 years, typical for large-sized high-quality silicon modules with the same lifespan. Polymer solar cells also suffer from huge degradation effects: the efficiency is decreased over time due to environmental effects. Good protective coatings are still to be developed. It is clear that in the future the plastic solar cells can be as low-cost alternative electricity source with any shape and size produced by using an appropriate technology.
   The illumination of the polymer/fulleren system by visible light leads to electron transfer from a polymer chain to a fullerene molecule. This is accompanied by the formation of photoinduced quasiparticle - polaron P⁺ - on a polymer chain and fullerene ion-radical C_{60^- (Fig. 2). Polaron is characterized by high in-chain rate, so fast charge separation occurs in the system. Both the polaron and ion-radical possess spin S= ½, so the charge photoinduction and separation processes can be controlled by the Electron Paramagnetic Resonance method. There are different dynamics processes in the polymer/fullerene system (see Fig. 2), namely the polaron motion along and between polymer chain, the superslow macromolecular libration and the rotation of a fullerene around own main molecular axis. studying these processes one can to optimize electronic properties of the polymer solar cell, including its efficiency and stability.

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