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》(Public Law 111-5)资助的。这个小企业技术转让第一阶段项目将展示从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，这些聚合物通过红外线可见。这种新型材料将通过将Silole和施主-受体-施主部分结合到骨架中来锻造，预计将增加光收集和载流子迁移率，从而使短路电流输出可能比现有技术高出三倍。这项工作的关键创新还将优化能级以降低电压损耗，并进一步优化器件结构和薄膜形态，有望提高填充因子。第一阶段的主要目标是确定锻造全光谱和高载流子迁移率共轭聚合物的可行性，以实现高效的太阳能转换。这项工作的一个辅助目标是了解光物理过程和器件物理，从而在第二阶段实现最佳的器件制造。这项技术对环境、社会和经济的影响非常广泛。随之而来的能源成本的突然下降源于全频谱收割，有望为当今动荡的以石油为基础的全球经济带来稳定和迫切需要的缓解。虽然光伏(PV)生产已经是全球增长最快的能源，但STTR项目的计划努力预计将颠覆性地将2010年光伏生产的预计成本降低3倍。该研究的预测生产成本为每瓦0.70美元，这项研究将展示一种与使用化石燃料生产电力的成本具有竞争力的技术。这项技术将为家庭和工业电力、车辆推进、消费电子产品、遥感、安全以及目前依赖化石燃料能源的无穷无尽的现有应用提供具有成本竞争力的清洁能源。

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.