Structure-Property Relationships: Enabling a faster Commercialisation of Organic Solar Cells

第一批使用有机半导体的电子设备刚刚进入市场：许多移动电话的显示器由有机发光二极管（oled）组成。然而，这些oled显示器被认为只是有机电子（OE）产品的第一波浪潮，有机太阳能电池和有机照明预计很快会紧随其后。有机太阳能电池目前是一个非常活跃的研究领域，因为它们有潜力成为一种非常廉价、大面积、灵活的光伏技术。此外，它们还可以具有独特的特性，如定制形状、半透明和不同的颜色，这大大扩大了潜在市场，进入了目前技术还很困难的领域。在实验室中，转换效率的记录达到了10%以上的值，使用寿命超过了10年，即通过了通常被认为是商业应用可行的最低要求的重要里程碑。然而，对于试图将这项技术商业化的工业来说，一个主要挑战是：对于任何使用薄有机半导体层的设备，其电学和光学性能强烈依赖于有机层中的分子排列，特别是有机太阳能电池。在很大程度上，有机薄膜中的分子结构、工艺、形态与器件性能之间的相互依赖关系是一个黑盒子。目前改进太阳能电池的方法是制造更多的新分子，并进行广泛的工艺优化和设备测试，但有机化学的选择几乎是无限的，工艺参数也有很多自由度。这种近乎反复试验的过程不仅耗费时间和金钱，而且还存在由于错误处理而导致最好的有机半导体被丢弃的风险。我们的项目将与四个工业合作伙伴（默克化学有限公司，Kurt J. Lesker有限公司，Eight19有限公司，牛津光伏有限公司）和三个学术合作伙伴（ISIS中子和介子源，钻石光源，牛津大学）密切合作，研究这个黑盒子，并随后开发优化有机太阳能电池制造的方法。这涉及整个价值链的优化，从有机半导体的设计和合成，到制造设备的开发，再到有机太阳能电池的最终生产。如果成功，这个项目将导致薄膜太阳能电池更快地进入市场，这有可能改变我们使用太阳能的方式。

The first electronic devices using organic semiconductors have just entered the market: many displays of mobile phones consist of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). However, these OLED-displays are considered only the first wave of organic electronic (OE) products, with organic solar cells and organic lighting expected to follow soon. Organic solar cells are currently a very active field of research, because they have the potential to become a very cheap, large area, and flexible photovoltaic technology. They furthermore can have unique properties like custom-made shapes, semi-transparency and different colours, considerably expanding the potential market to areas where current technologies are struggling. Records for conversion efficiencies have reached values above 10% and lifetimes exceeding 10 years in the laboratory, i.e. passing important milestones that are often considered as minimum requirement to become viable for commercial applications.However, one major challenge for industry trying to commercialise this technology is: for any kind of device using thin organic semiconducting layers, its electrical and optical properties strongly depend on molecular arrangement in the organic layer, in particular for organic solar cells. To a large extent, the interdependencies between molecular structure, processing, morphology in the thin organic film, and the device properties is a black box. The current approach for improving solar cells is to make more new molecules and to run an extensive process optimisation and device testing, but there are nearly unlimited options of organic chemistry and many degrees of freedom in process parameters. This nearly trial-and-error process is consuming time and money, as well as carrying the risk that the best organic semiconductors are discarded due to wrong processing. Our project will look into this black box in a close collaboration of four industrial partners (Merck Chemicals Ltd, Kurt J. Lesker Company Ltd, Eight19 Ltd, Oxford PV Ltd) and three academic partners (ISIS Neutron and Muon Source, Diamond Lightsource, University of Oxford) and subsequently develop ways to optimise the manufacturing of organic solar cells. This involves optimisation along the complete value chain, from the design and synthesis of organic semiconductors, the development of manufacturing equipment, to the final production of organic solar cells. If successful, this project will lead to a faster market introduction of thin film solar cells that have the potential to transform the way we use solar energy.