Introduction

The most direct use of solar energy is the conversion of

photons to electricity
This is exactly what solar technologies do
Solar technologies can be classified into 3 generations

1st generation
The first generation PVs are the silicon wafers
Performance of 15-20%
They dominate the market due to their
High Performance and stability
However, a lot of energy is necessary to produce them

2nd Generation
Second generation PVs use amorphous Si, CIGS and
CdTe
Performance is 10-15%
Although they have lower production cost,
Still require much energy for fabrication thru vacuum
processing and high T treatment
Moreover they use scarce elements

3rd Generation
Third generation PVs, which would be our focus today
Since there are too many types of 3rd generation solar cells
Our group will be using three of the more popular ones for illustration of the
concepts
Namely: polymer-fullerene hybrids, polymer-perovskite hybrids and polymerquantum dot solar cells
Third generation
Use small molecules, polymers and perovskites
This is the example of the polymer-perovskite hybrid fabricated by UCLA
They were able to use get 17% efficiency using low quality silicon
These hybrids can reach 20%, on par with the silicon wafers
Currently a lot of research is being channelled to this particular type of hybrid

Why Polymer-based hybrids?

They have certain compelling selling points
Makes them a promising option for various applications
large-scale production finally seems economically
feasible in the near future
Thanks to polymer-based hybrid solar cells
The first advantage of is

Flexibility
Compared to their precursors, silicon wafers which are
rigid
Thin-film polymer hybrids are flexible
Which opens up a much wider scope for application

Material Cost
The layers processed from solution can be
Easily up-scaled at a very low cost per unit area

Processability
printing & coating techniques of R2R technology
Makes fabrication
Simple
Fast
Low cost

Scarce Materials
Option to do away with scarce materials such as indium
In this particular configuration, ZnO is used instead

The Unification Challenge

Now in the grand scheme of things
For polymer-hybrids be commercially viable
They have to perform well in three major areas
Efficiency
Process
Stability

Efficiency
Efficiency wise where a lot of effect has been going
into there has been tremendous progress when
perovskite came into the picture
Next important graph to show the significance of
perovskite is the maximum photon energy utilization
(Vopencircuit/bandgap)
Not all the absorbed energy is converted to electricity
During a process called thermal relaxation, some of the
energy is loss as heat
With perovskite, this energy lost is reduced
This results in an efficiency increase

Process
As mentioned earlier
Solution processing &
Being able to use R2R
Has low fabrication cost

Stability
Left degraded right is a new one
Polymer based struggling to last even a year
Because they
Water
Decompose
Now that we have the general background
Lets take a look at the mechanism behind the polymer
hybrids

Mechanism
This diagram shows a general arrangement of materials
in a polymer hybrid
Called the layer stack
Consists of

Electricity Generation
First process is charge separation
The bulk heterojunction (you can take it as the active layer)
Consist of donor and acceptor materials
Donor energy levels are shown in green, acceptor in pink
Light absorbed in bhj forms excitons number 1
When the excitons reach the DA interface, they separate due to
the difference in energy levels of the donor and acceptor materials
The charge carriers are channelled to their respective electrodes
The energy difference helps to achieve directional flows of charge
carriers to their respective electrodes

Geometry
There are two type of geometries for polymer hybrids
Normal and inverted
The ITO you see in the diagram is the positive electrode in the normal
configuration
When the active and transport layers are reversed
It becomes the negative electrode
The corresponding positive electrode has to be changed as well to have a
lower work function
Inverted geometries are often preferred as they allow selection of
materials with smaller domains i.e. they can be made thinner which
improves efficiency
Selection of surface materials which are more resistant to corrosion

Tandem Solar Cells

Unique form of solar cells consisting of two or more
subcells combined in a layer stack
together convert more of the sunlight spectrum into
electricity and therefore increase the overall cell
efficiency
Subcells used need not be of the same family of
materials
This is an example of a polymer-perovskite hybrid
Let me explain how the tandem cell increases efficiency

How Tandem Cell Increases

Efficiency
This is the solar spectrum
A typical PV absorbs around 46% of the total solar radiation
Which is normally in the visible light region
In a tandem SC, the are two active layers, the high-band gap and low
band gap
The high band gap active layer which corresponds to the red line
absorbs the lower wavelength photons while transmitting the rest
The low band gap active layer corresponding to the green line
absorbs the higher wavelength photon (in the infrared region)
Effectively, this widens the absorption window of the solar cell to cover
a wider region of the solar spectrum, thereby increasing efficiency

Example of the Polymer-Perovskite

Hybrid
I will use the example of the perovskite hybrid to illustrate this
concept further
PFN and CH3NH3PbI3 are the perovskites
CH3NH3PbI3 is part of the high band gap active layer in the
top subcell
PBSeDTEG8: copolymer with low band gap and is part of the
active layer in the bottom subcell
The energy level diagram illustrates how the energy levels of
the materials. The materials are arranged in such a fashion
that the charge carriers can be channelled towards the
respective electrodes

Perovskites
ABX3 structure
Borrow the name from calcium titanium oxide Ca Ti O3
Which is the perovskite

Inverted geometry
It allows materials of smaller domain to be chosen
This makes the film thinner and more efficiency
As we have learnt before, diffusion lengths for charge carriers are very
small
They have to quickly reach the D/A interface and be separated
Moreover, inverted geometry allows selection of more corrosion resistant
Al electrode can be changed to Ag.

Perovskite Tuning
As you conductivity of ceramics are altered by the
number schottsky and frenkel defects
By adding increasing the halide concentration into the
perovskite, the band gap can be lower.