MTL News Archives for 2012

Additive Boosts Organic Solar Cell Efficiency


March 8, 2012

Chemistry Prof. Tim Swager in collaboration with the MTL director Prof. Vladimir Bulović, graduate student Jose Lobez, and Dr. Trisha Andrew, constructed blended heterojunction polymeric photovoltaic cells that show 30% power conversion efficiency increase when doped with a small amount (0.25%) of a polymer additive. Additives that sit at the donor-acceptor interface "open a new direction to polymer solar cell research," says Prof. Yang Yang, an electronic materials researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles.

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In a polymer-based photovoltaic cell, two electrically conductive polymers are sandwiched against each other, one called a donor polymer and the other called an acceptor polymer. When light strikes the polymers, it creates a one-way flow of electricity from the donor toward the acceptor material.

Read the full story here at Chemical & Engineering News

Copyright © 2012 American Chemical Society