Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 25, 2025
06:49
In situ Grazing Incidence Small Angle X-ray Scattering on Roll-To-Roll Coating of Organic Solar Cells with Laboratory X-ray Instrumentation
Published on: March 2, 2021
6.2K
Organic indoor PV: vanishing surface recombination allows for robust device architecture
Xueshi Jiang1,2,3, Bernhard Siegmund1,2,3, Koen Vandewal1,2,3
1Hasselt University, Institute for Materials Research (imo-imomec), Martelarenlaan 42, B-3500 Hasselt, Belgium. xueshi.jiang@uhasselt.be.
Materials Horizons
|May 30, 2024
Summary
Simplified organic indoor photovoltaics (OPV) achieve high performance without an electron transport layer (ETL) by using a thicker absorber. This reduces surface recombination, enabling low-power applications.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Renewable Energy
- Organic Electronics
Background:
- Organic indoor photovoltaics (OPV) are promising for low-power, off-grid applications.
- Charge transport layers (ETLs) in OPVs aid carrier extraction but can cause degradation and fabrication complexity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To demonstrate a simplified, high-performance indoor OPV architecture.
- To investigate the role of the electron transport layer (ETL) in thick-absorber indoor OPV devices.
Main Methods:
- Fabrication of organic photovoltaic devices with extended absorber thickness (>500 nm).
- Performance evaluation of devices with and without an electron transport layer (ETL) under indoor illumination.
- Analysis of recombination mechanisms (surface vs. bulk) under varying illumination conditions.
Main Results:
- A simplified indoor OPV architecture without an ETL achieves high performance.
- Reduced surface recombination in thick absorber devices diminishes the ETL's impact under indoor light.
- ETLs remain crucial for outdoor illumination due to dominant bulk recombination.
Conclusions:
- Thick absorber (>500 nm) organic photovoltaic devices offer a simplified architecture for indoor applications.
- Eliminating the ETL in thick-absorber indoor OPVs is feasible due to reduced surface recombination.
- This simplified design holds potential for large-scale indoor OPV production.
