Organic polymers show sunny potential (block copolymer solar cells)

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http://news.rice.edu/2013/05/29/organic-polymers-show-sunny-potential-2/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Organic polymers show sunny potential[/font]

[font size=4]Rice, Penn State labs lay groundwork for block copolymer solar cells[/font]

[font size=3]HOUSTON – (May 29, 2013) – A new version of solar cells created by laboratories at Rice and Pennsylvania State universities could open the door to research on a new class of solar energy devices.

The photovoltaic devices created in a project led by Rice chemical engineer Rafael Verduzco and Penn State chemical engineer Enrique Gomez are based on block copolymers, self-assembling organic materials that arrange themselves into distinct layers. They easily outperform other cells with polymer compounds as active elements.

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“On paper, block copolymers are excellent candidates for organic solar cells, but no one has been able to get very good photovoltaic performance using block copolymers,” Verduzco said. “We didn’t give up on the idea of block copolymers because there’s really only been a handful of these types of solar cells previously tested. We thought getting good performance using block copolymers was possible if we designed the right materials and fabricated the solar cells under the right conditions.”

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“We’ll focus on performance first, because if we can’t get it high enough, there’s no reason to address some of the other challenges like stability,” Verduzco said. Encapsulating a solar cell to keep air and water from degrading it is easy, he said, but protecting it from ultraviolet degradation over time is hard. “You have to expose it to sunlight. That you can’t avoid.”

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl401420s