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CPE researchers, in collaboration with FAU, KAUST and Stanford University, have recently published their exciting new organic solar cell results.

A team led by and other members of the CPE, in collaboration with researchers at the FAU, KAUST and Stanford University, has recently published their exciting new organic solar cell results in the journal Nature Communications. The paper by et al., titled “” presents a material that has been designed to give high efficiencies using the traditional semiconducting polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT). This is significant since the majority of high-efficiency organic solar cells at present use complex donor-acceptor polymers as the light absorbing species and C₇₀ fullerene compounds as the electron acceptor, and both of these have issues with device stability as well as being too expensive to produce on an industrial scale. P3HT, meanwhile, is already produced on large scales and is relatively stable, however it does not typically produce high efficiencies because of its limited absorption spectrum.

By designing a new electron acceptor that has complementary absorption to that of P3HT and can also crystallise to form a favourable morphology with the polymer, the researchers here have shown that efficiencies of 6.4% can be achieved, which is a record value for fullerene-free solar cells with P3HT as the donor.

In addition, the improved stability of these devices means that they retain 73% of their original efficiency after 1200 hours in air, which is significantly higher than for the other donor-acceptor polymer devices reported. These results present a major step forward for solar energy research and suggest that the production low-cost, stable organic solar cells may be close on the horizon.

• Nature Communications 7, Article number: 11585 (2016)