RESEARCHORGANIC PV


T


atsuo Hasegawa (Leader), Jun’ya Tsutsumi (Researcher) and others of the Correlated Materials Photoelectronics Group, the Photonics Research Institute (Director: Masanobu Watanabe), the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST; President: Tamotsu Nomaguchi), have substantiated an organic photovoltaic cell (OPC) based on a novel concept where optical absorption due to the charge-transfer between different organic molecules is utilized.


Research and development of OPC technologies have currently been conducted worldwide, because the technologies are expected to realize light-weight, flexible photovoltaic sheets.


In this study, the researchers designed and fabricated a prototypical OPC using a molecular compound composed of two different kinds of organic molecules. It was found that the cell presents a photovoltaic effect due to the irradiation of near-infrared light whose wavelength is longer than 1 µm, although such a photoelectric conversion of near-infrared light has been very difficult in conventional OPCs.


Furthermore, the lifetime and the diffusion length of excitons and charge carriers in the device were found to be three orders of magnitude longer than those of the conventional OPCs. Based on the concept, we can expect to realize the more efficient conversion from light energy to electric energy.


33


www.solar-pv-management.com Issue I 2011


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