Organic Solar Cells

Organic photovoltaic cells are considered among the third generation of solar cells. Simply put, they use organic materials for light absorption and transporting electric charges. Potential advantages include easy, low-cost, and large-scale production as well as heightened flexibility. Organic molecules used in the construction of these solar cells are also flexible in that they can be chemically tuned to absorb a very wide spectrum of light in a relatively small material area and provide for a wide range of custom specifications by customers of manufacturers.

That plasticity should also allow for an incredibly high amount of applications. It is possible that organic solar cells could comprise liquids such as ink and be printed onto paper or other substrates at very small costs. Barriers are still huge, however, and include low conversion efficiency, low stability, and fast degradation in sunlight.

Organic solar cells have three types:

1. Single-layer cells are the simplest, comprised of one organic PV material sandwiched between to metallic conductors. They are also the least advantageous, with very low efficiency and a conspicuous inability to create an electric field powerful enough to move excited electrons through the solar cell. In response, researchers devised the...
2. Multi-layer organic solar cell, which contains two different layers of organic PV material carefully chosen to maximize the electrostatic forces created between the two. This breaks up electrons more efficiently, creating a better working but still problematic solar cell. Therefore...
3. The dispersed hetorojunction photovoltaic organic solar cell was developed. In this type those two layers, one an electron donor, one an electron acceptor, are mixed together to form a polymer. This enables a more efficient solar cell than its predecessors, although these solar cells still fall prey to the common problems with organic photovoltaics described above.
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