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nanotimes News in Brief

11-06/07 :: June/July 2011

New MIT-developed materials make it possible to produce photovoltaic cells on paper or fabric, nearly as simply as printing a document. The new technology, developed by a team of researchers at MIT, is reported in a paper in the journal Advanced Materials, published online July 8. The paper is co-authored by Karen Gleason, the Alexander and I. Michael Kasser Professor of Chemical Engineering; Profes- sor of Electrical Engineering Vladimir Bulović; graduate stu- dent Miles Barr; and six other students and postdocs. The work was supported by the Eni-MIT Alliance Solar Frontiers Program and the National Science Foundation.

The technique represents a major departure from the systems used until now to create most solar cells, which require exposing the substrates to potentially damaging conditions, either in the form of liquids or high tem- peratures. The new printing process uses vapors, not liquids, and temperatures less than 120 degrees Celsius. These “gentle” conditions make it possible to use ordinary untreated paper, cloth or plastic as the substrate on which the solar cells can be printed.

Miles C. Barr, Jill A. Rowehl, Richard R. Lunt, Jingjing Xu, Annie Wang, Christopher M. Boyce, Sung Gap Im, Vladimir Bulović, Karen K. Gleason: Direct Monolithic Integration of Organic Photovoltaic Circuits on Unmodified Paper, In: Advan- ced Materials Early View, July 08, 2011, DOI: 10.1002/adma.201101263: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.201101263

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=21O0tBe-Alk

http://www.rle.mit.edu/rleonline/People/VladimirBulovic.html http://engineering.mit.edu/about/deans_office/karen_gleason.php http://web.mit.edu/gleason-lab/index.html