DAMASCO

"Preparation and Application of new n-type, Electron Acceptor Materials in Organic Solar Cells"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Organic Photovoltaics have advantages compared to traditional inorganic solar cells, offering the prospect of low fabrication cost and flexiblility. The properties of organic and polymeric materials, open the perspective of a widely distributed photovoltaic low cost mass production. For this development to take place, the devices power conversion efficiency have to reach 10% and their lifetime have to increase. The development of polymer based solar cells has made significant progress but more research in the design and synthesis of new photoactive organic materials is needed. Bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells have active layers composed by electron-donating p-type semiconductors and electron-acceptor n-type materials. DAMASCO project will contribute to the design, synthesis and testing of new electron acceptor molecules and polymers with n-type properties for organic BHJ solar cells. Perylene diimides dyes are a significant class of n-type organic semiconductors for optoelectronics. These materials have good thermal and photochemical stability, high electron affinity, high absorption and their electronic properties can be easily modified via chemical tailoring by introducing substituent groups. Due to these properties, perylenes are candidates for organic photovoltaics. DAMASCO will develop novel perylene based molecules and polymers with n-type semiconduction properties and good solar harvesting. DAMASCO project has the following objectives: 1) design and synthesis of novel electron acceptor perylene based systems; 2) preparation and characterization of polymeric donor/acceptor photoactive blends; 3) assembling of BHJ solar cells and photovoltaic performance evaluation. The expected results are: a) new highly stable molecules and polymers with n-type semiconduction properties; b) nanostructured photoactive layer made of polythiophenes and perylene acceptor systems; c) BHJ solar cells with good harvesting of the solar light and longer live time.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

EU-funded scientists are developing an organic photoconductor based on perylene that efficiently harvests solar energy.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

As strong electron acceptors, perylene diimides (PDIs) have been widely used as polymeric acceptors for polymer bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells. However, there are a small number of PDI-based materials that have been synthesised and used as photoactive components.

The EU-funded project 'Preparation and application of new n-type, electron acceptor materials in organic solar cells' (DAMASCO) is developing and testing novel electron-accepting molecules and polymers to obtain efficient BHJ cells. The project is demonstrating the high chemical versatility of PDI by introducing substituent groups in the diimide or bay positions.

Scientists have already designed a series of PDI-based molecules with different fused aromatic rings in the bay positions. The new PDI-based materials were fully characterised in terms of their optical and electrochemical properties. Their highest and lowest occupied molecular orbital energy levels proved to be suitable for use as acceptors in blends with a certain hole-conducting material (polythiophene, PH3T). Moreover, a decrease in photoluminescence intensity in such blends showed that a photoinduced charge transfer process takes place between PH3T and PDI.

Power conversion efficiencies as much as 1 % have been obtained, which represents one of the best results for BHJ solar cells containing PDI/PH3T as active layer.

Researchers also focused on developing other electron-accepting materials and on synthesising PDI dimers and polymer acceptors using different donor units.

DAMASCO has contributed significantly to the field of polymer-based solar cells by designing new photoactive organic materials. Nevertheless, to enable low-cost mass production, much effort needs to be devoted to further increasing their power conversion efficiency and enhancing their lifetime.