Polymer / fullerene photovoltaic devices: new materials and innovative processes for high-volume manufacture

收集阳光有可能彻底改变人类发电的方式。然而，目前世界总电力中只有一小部分（2008年为0.02%）是利用太阳能发电的。基于晶体硅的光伏（PV）装置是一种越来越受欢迎的利用太阳辐射发电的方式，然而由于制造成本高，这种装置的投资回收期相对较长。因此，人们对开发基于有机（聚合物）材料（OPV）的光伏发电越来越感兴趣，这种材料原则上可以在非常大的区域内以低成本生产，利用基于解决方案的工艺，不需要大量的能量输入。然而，目前，即使是最好的实验室opv的效率也明显低于标准晶体硅（~8%比~18%），再加上相对较短的使用寿命，这些属性在一定程度上阻碍了它们的商业化。然而，人们对扩大opv的规模非常感兴趣，尽管目前还没有就高速沉积多层架构的最佳途径达成共识。许多在OPV器件中具有最高效率的材料往往具有相当低的溶解度，这一事实使这个问题更加复杂；这些特性限制了它们在高速制造过程中的应用。解决这些问题是我们提出的研究的核心。首先，我们将设计最先进的低能隙给体聚合物的化学结构，以显着提高其溶解度和可加工性。然后，我们将探索使用基于喷雾的技术将这些材料沉积到opv中。形成的薄膜将使用高分辨率电子显微镜以及x射线和中子散射来表征。我们为这项任务组建的项目团队在有机电子、聚合物合成、聚合物物理和实际制造工艺方面拥有领先的专业知识。我们的项目得到了欧洲区域发展基金（project Mercury）的资助，用于购买自动化气溶胶沉积系统，并资助博士后和研究生研究人员。通过我们与tsb资助的项目的（未资助的）联系，我们已经准备好了商业化的路线，该项目旨在开发用于透明窗户玻璃应用的opv。我们预计我们的工作结果将是一套材料和高速OPV制造的可扩展工艺。我们将通过在谢菲尔德太阳能农场展示放大的OPV设备，并与希望在工作中使用有机光伏的艺术家和设计师互动，为我们的工作带来影响。我们亦会透过“阳光计划”，为我们的工作赢得宝贵的支持和宣传；这是谢菲尔德大学的一个旗舰项目，旨在促进对太阳能利用的研究，以解决在气候不确定性日益增加的情况下与人类不断增长的能源需求和粮食生产相关的问题。

The harvesting of sunlight has the potential to revolutionize the way mankind generates electricity. At present however, only a small fraction (0.02% in 2008) of the world's total electrical power is generated using sunlight. Photovoltaic (PV) installations based on crystalline silicon are an increasingly popular way of generating electricity from solar-radiation, however such installations suffer from a relatively long pay-back time resulting from their high cost of manufacture. There is thus growing interest in the development photovoltaics based on organic (polymeric) materials (OPV) that can in principle be produced at low-cost, over very large areas utilizing solution-based processes that do not require a large energy input. At present however, even the best lab-based OPVs have an efficiency that is significantly lower than that of standard crystalline silicon (~8% compared with ~18%), coupled with a relatively short operational lifetime - attributes that have partly precluded their commercialization. There is nevertheless great interest in exploring the scale-up of OPVs, despite the fact that no common consensus has been reached on the best route to deposit multilayer architectures at high-speed. This problem is compounded by the fact that many of the materials that have the highest efficiency in OPV devices often have rather low solubility; properties that limit their application in high-speed manufacture processes. Addressing these issues lies at the heart of our proposed research. Firstly, we will engineer the chemical structure of state-of-the-art low energy-gap donor polymers to significantly improve their solubility and processability. We will then explore the deposition of such materials into OPVs using spray-based techniques. The thin-films formed will be characterized using high-resolution electron microscopy together with X-ray and neutron-scattering. The project team we have assembled for this task have leading expertise in organic-electronics, polymer-synthesis, polymer-physics and practical manufacturing processes. Our project is significantly strengthened by funds from the European Regional Development Fund (Project Mercury) to purchase an automated aerosol deposition system and fund postdoctoral and postgraduate researchers. We have ready route for commercialization via our (unfunded) links with a TSB-funded project that intends to develop OPVs for transparent window-glass applications. We anticipate the outcome of our work will be a materials set and a scalable process for high speed OPV manufacture.We will gain impact for our work through showcasing scaled-up OPV devices at the Sheffield Solar Farm and by interacting with artists and designers who wish to use organic photovoltaics in their work. We will also gain valuable support and publicity for our work through 'Project Sunshine'; a flagship project at Sheffield that promotes research into the utilization of solar energy to solve problems related to mankind's growing energy-needs and food-production in a time of growing climate uncertainty.