STTR Phase I: Full Spectrum Conjugated Polymers for Highly Efficient Organic Photovoltaics

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。这个小型企业技术转移第一阶段项目将展示用新设计的共轭和潜在可变带隙聚合物形成全光谱高效聚合物太阳能电池的可行性，这些聚合物可以通过红外光收集可见光。这种新型材料将通过将Silole和供体-受体-供体部分结合到骨干结构中来制造，预计将增加光捕获和载流子迁移率，因此可能会将当前技术的短路电流输出提高三倍。这项工作的关键创新还将优化能级以降低电压损失，进一步优化器件结构和薄膜形态有望提高填充系数。第一阶段的主要目标是确定锻造实现高效太阳能转换的全光谱和高载流子迁移率共轭聚合物的可行性。这项工作的一个辅助目标是了解光物理过程和器件物理，这将导致第二阶段的最佳器件制造。这项技术对环境、社会和经济的影响非常广泛。全谱采收技术带来的能源成本骤降有望为当今以石油为基础的全球经济带来稳定和急需的缓解。虽然光伏（PV）生产已经是全球增长最快的能源来源，但该STTR项目的计划努力预计将在2010年将光伏生产的预计成本降低三分之一。预计生产成本为每瓦0.70美元，这项研究将展示一种与化石燃料发电成本相竞争的技术。这项技术将为家庭和工业电力、车辆推进、消费电子、遥感、安全以及目前依赖化石燃料的无数现有应用提供清洁且具有成本竞争力的能源。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).This Small Business Technology Transfer Phase I project will demonstrate the feasibility of forming full spectrum highly efficient polymer solar cells from newly designed conjugated and potentially variable bandgap polymers that harvest visible through infrared light. The novel materials will be forged by incorporating Silole and donor-acceptor-donor moieties into the backbone and are expected to increase light harvesting and carrier mobility, and hence short circuit current output potentially by a factor of three over the state of the art. The key innovations of this work will also optimize energy levels to reduce voltage loss and further optimization of device structure and film morphology is expected improve fill factor. The primary objective of phase I is to determine the feasibility of forging full spectrum and high carrier mobility conjugated polymers that achieve highly efficient solar conversion. An ancillary goal of this work is arrive at an understanding of photophysical processes and device physics that will lead to optimal device fabrication during phase II.The environmental, societal and economic impacts of this technology are enormously broad. The ensuing abrupt drop in energy costs stemming from full spectrum harvesting promises to deliver stability and urgently needed relief to today's volatile oil based global economy. While photovoltaic (PV) production is already the fastest growing source of energy across the globe, the planned efforts of this STTR project are expected to disruptively reduce the projected cost of photovoltaic production in 2010 by a factor of 3. At a forecasted production cost of $0.70 per Watt, this research will demonstrate a technology that is competitive with the cost of electricity that is produced from fossil fuels. This technology will provide clean and cost competitive energy for home and industrial power, vehicle propulsion, consumer electronics, remote sensing, security, and an endless list of existing applications that currently rely on energy from fossil fuel.