Conducting Polymer Based Materials for Solar Energy Conversion

这项研究的目标是找到进一步提高基于聚噻吩和其他共轭聚合物的有机半导体光电效率的方法，以构建高效的有机太阳能电池。由于主要的环境问题和高油价，太阳能转换的问题在过去几年中变得非常重要。当今太阳能电池中使用的主要材料是硅;然而，就其生产所需的金钱和能源而言，硅是昂贵的。有机半导体可以很容易地用作薄膜（“太阳能涂料”）;它们可能很便宜，并且与无机半导体相比，在可见光范围内具有更高的吸收系数。然而，有机材料的主要问题是它们的低效率，目前在一些先进的实验室样品中最高为5-6%，而商业硅电池的效率为15%或更高。

The goal of the proposed research is to find ways to further improve the photoefficiency of organic semiconductors based on polythiophenes and other conjugated polymers, in order to build efficient organic solar cells. The problem of solar energy conversion has become very important over the past few years due to major environmental concerns and high oil prices. The main material utilized in today's solar cells is silicon; however, silicon is expensive in terms of both money and energy required for its production. Organic semiconductors can be easily applied as thin films ("solar paint"); they are potentially inexpensive and feature much higher absorption coefficients in the visible range as compared to inorganic semiconductors. However, the main problem of organic materials is their low efficiency, which is currently maximum 5-6% in some advanced laboratory samples, as compared to 15% and more for commercial silicon cells.