Organic photovoltaic cells – promising indoor light harvesters for self-sustainable electronics

Photovoltaic cells are attracting significant interest for harvesting indoor light for low power consumption wireless electronics such as those required for smart homes and offices, and the rapidly-growing Internet of Things. Here, we explore the potential of solution processable, small molecule photovoltaic cells as indoor power sources. By optimizing the solvent vapour annealing (SVA) time for the photovoltaic layer, a balance between its crystallization and phase separation is obtained, resulting in a record power conversion efficiency (PCE) of over 28% under fluorescent lamps of 1000 lux, generating a maximum power density of 78.2 μW cm−2 (>10% PCE under AM1.5G). This high indoor performance surpasses that of silicon based photovoltaic cells, and is similar to that of gallium arsenide photovoltaic cells. Besides, the ratios of the voltage at the maximum power point (MPP) to the open circuit voltage are similar from indoor lighting to one sun conditions, which is unique and allows a less power consuming method to track the MPP for a broad range of light intensities (potentially attractive for wearable photovoltaics). New insight into the effect of SVA on the indoor and one sun performance is provided using advanced optoelectronic characterization techniques, which show that the mobility-lifetime products as a function of charge carrier density can be correlated well with the performance at different light levels. Our results suggest that organic photovoltaic cells could be promising as indoor power sources for self-sustainable electronics.

[1]  J. Needham.  THE METABOLISM OF THE DEVELOPING EGG , 1925 .

[2]  M. Vitelli,et al.  Optimization of perturb and observe maximum power point tracking method , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Power Electronics.

[3]  Helmut Kipphan,et al.  Handbook of Print Media: Technologies and Production Methods , 2006 .

[4]  Valentin D. Mihailetchi,et al.  Charge Transport and Photocurrent Generation in Poly(3‐hexylthiophene): Methanofullerene Bulk‐Heterojunction Solar Cells , 2006 .

[5]  J. C. de Mello,et al.  Experimental determination of the rate law for charge carrier decay in a polythiophene: Fullerene solar cell , 2008 .

[6]  Jean Manca,et al.  The Relation Between Open‐Circuit Voltage and the Onset of Photocurrent Generation by Charge‐Transfer Absorption in Polymer : Fullerene Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells , 2008 .

[7]  Brendan O'Flynn,et al.  Design considerations of sub-mW indoor light energy harvesting for wireless sensor systems , 2010, JETC.

[8]  Alan J. Heeger,et al.  Recombination in polymer-fullerene bulk heterojunction solar cells , 2010 .

[9]  D. Bradley,et al.  Effect of Crystallization on the Electronic Energy Levels and Thin Film Morphology of P3HT:PCBM Blends , 2011 .

[10]  Christoph J. Brabec,et al.  Organic photovoltaics for low light applications , 2011 .

[11]  Wim Turkenburg,et al.  Charge yield potential of indoor-operated solar cells incorporated into Product Integrated Photovoltaic (PIPV) , 2011 .

[12]  J. Durrant,et al.  Insights from Transient Optoelectronic Analyses on the Open-Circuit Voltage of Organic Solar Cells. , 2012, The journal of physical chemistry letters.

[13]  Thuc‐Quyen Nguyen,et al.  Quantification of Geminate and Non‐Geminate Recombination Losses within a Solution‐Processed Small‐Molecule Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cell , 2012, Advanced materials.

[14]  J. Nelson,et al.  Meaning of reaction orders in polymer:fullerene solar cells , 2012 .

[15]  L. Reindl,et al.  Maximum efficiencies of indoor photovoltaic devices , 2013, IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.

[16]  F. Krebs,et al.  Roll‐to‐Roll fabrication of large area functional organic materials , 2013 .

[17]  George F. A. Dibb,et al.  Influence of doping on charge carrier collection in normal and inverted geometry polymer:fullerene solar cells , 2013, Scientific Reports.

[18]  Arnab Raha,et al.  Powering the Internet of Things , 2014, 2014 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Low Power Electronics and Design (ISLPED).

[19]  Peter Veelaert,et al.  A Proposal for Typical Artificial Light Sources for the Characterization of Indoor Photovoltaic Applications , 2014 .

[20]  S. Tsang,et al.  Batch‐to‐Batch Variation of Polymeric Photovoltaic Materials: its Origin and Impacts on Charge Carrier Transport and Device Performances , 2014 .

[21]  M. Stella,et al.  Towards industrialization of polymer solar cells: material processing for upscaling , 2014 .

[22]  Ronan Frizzell,et al.  GaAs solar cells for Indoor Light Harvesting , 2014, 2014 IEEE 40th Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC).

[23]  Joseph W. Matiko,et al.  Review of the application of energy harvesting in buildings , 2013 .

[24]  T. Brown,et al.  Characterization of photovoltaic devices for indoor light harvesting and customization of flexible dye solar cells to deliver superior efficiency under artificial lighting , 2015 .

[25]  S. Beeby,et al.  The effect of the type of illumination on the energy harvesting performance of solar cells , 2015 .

[26]  Dieter Neher,et al.  Competition between recombination and extraction of free charges determines the fill factor of organic solar cells , 2015, Nature Communications.

[27]  O. Inganäs,et al.  Photo-generated carriers lose energy during extraction from polymer-fullerene solar cells , 2015, Nature Communications.

[28]  Chien-Yu Chen,et al.  Perovskite Photovoltaics for Dim‐Light Applications , 2015 .

[29]  Wallace W. H. Wong,et al.  A molecular nematic liquid crystalline material for high-performance organic photovoltaics , 2015, Nature Communications.

[30]  J. Nelson,et al.  Influence of Surface Recombination on Charge-Carrier Kinetics in Organic Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells with Nickel Oxide Interlayers , 2015 .

[31]  Masahiro Hosoya,et al.  Investigation of the organic solar cell characteristics for indoor LED light applications , 2015 .

[32]  D. Blaauw,et al.  AlGaAs Photovoltaics for Indoor Energy Harvesting in mm-Scale Wireless Sensor Nodes , 2015, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[33]  Paul L. Burn,et al.  Photocarrier drift distance in organic solar cells and photodetectors , 2015, Scientific Reports.

[34]  Michelle S. Vezie,et al.  Understanding the effect of unintentional doping on transport optimization and analysis in efficient organic bulk-heterojunction solar cells , 2015 .

[35]  I. Mathews,et al.  Performance of III–V Solar Cells as Indoor Light Energy Harvesters , 2016, IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics.

[36]  D. Blaauw,et al.  Energy Harvesting for GaAs Photovoltaics Under Low-Flux Indoor Lighting Conditions , 2016, IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices.

[37]  A. Di Carlo,et al.  Mesoporous perovskite solar cells and the role of nanoscale compact layers for remarkable all-round high efficiency under both indoor and outdoor illumination , 2016 .

[38]  D. Venkataraman,et al.  Indoor light recycling: a new home for organic photovoltaics , 2016 .

[39]  Jegadesan Subbiah,et al.  Reduced Recombination in High Efficiency Molecular Nematic Liquid Crystalline: Fullerene Solar Cells , 2016 .

[40]  A. Herzing,et al.  Film morphology evolution during solvent vapor annealing of highly efficient small molecule donor/acceptor blends. , 2016, Journal of materials chemistry. A.

[41]  Thomas Wågberg,et al.  Toward a Low‐Cost Artificial Leaf: Driving Carbon‐Based and Bifunctional Catalyst Electrodes with Solution‐Processed Perovskite Photovoltaics , 2016 .

[42]  K. Ghiggino,et al.  Suppressing Subnanosecond Bimolecular Charge Recombination in a High-Performance Organic Photovoltaic Material , 2016 .

[43]  Harrison Ka Hin Lee,et al.  Is organic photovoltaics promising for indoor applications , 2016 .

[44]  Y. Aoki.  Organic Photovoltaics for Energy Harvester of Wireless Sensor Network , 2016 .

[45]  James W. Evans,et al.  Organic solar cells and fully printed super-capacitors optimized for indoor light energy harvesting , 2016 .

[46]  Jianqi Zhang,et al.  Fluorination-enabled optimal morphology leads to over 11% efficiency for inverted small-molecule organic solar cells , 2016, Nature Communications.

[47]  Michael C. Heiber,et al.  Small is Powerful: Recent Progress in Solution‐Processed Small Molecule Solar Cells , 2017 .

[48]  Yoichi Aoki,et al.  Photovoltaic performance of Organic Photovoltaics for indoor energy harvester , 2017 .

[49]  Yun Zhang,et al.  Molecular Optimization Enables over 13% Efficiency in Organic Solar Cells. , 2017, Journal of the American Chemical Society.

[50]  M. Freitag,et al.  Dye-sensitized solar cells for efficient power generation under ambient lighting , 2017, Nature Photonics.

[51]  Q. Peng,et al.  Highly efficient halogen-free solvent processed small-molecule organic solar cells enabled by material design and device engineering , 2017 .