During the last video, you learned about

the working principles.

Now, we will look at how we implement these
to design a solar cell.
We will also learn about tandem solar cells.
Polymer solar cells are made in many
different
variations with different types of layers
and structures.
There are, however, two main categories.
Normal geometry and inverted geometry
devices.
In the normal geometry, the electrons are
extracted at the back
electrode and the holes at the front of
the electrode.
This is in reverse for the inverted
structure.
The naming convention is due to the fact
that
the normal device geometry was the one
used first.
The inverted structure was invented later
to
accommodate the use of other electrode
materials.
Although polymer solar cells with many
different types and number of layers
have been employed, the typical layout is
to have the active layer
in the middle, surrounded by a hole
transport layer, and an electron
transport layer to facilitate the
extraction of the two types of carriers.
Outermost is the transport front
electrode, and the back electrode.
Glass and plastic are the two main
substrates used.
The big difference is that glass is stiff,
while plastic is flexible.
Most researchers use glass because it is
best suited, and when the
different layers are applied using
techniques
such as spin coating and evaporation.
One of the great attractions of polymer
solar cells is that it can be
mass produced in great quantity at a
low price using simple printing and
coating technologies.
And flexibility of plastic makes it ideal
for this type of industrial mode of
production.
Few research groups have therefore begun
using plastic
foil, mainly based on polyethylene
terephthalate, or PET.
There are some other things to consider.
Glass is a very heat stable and a
very good barrier material to oxygen
and moisture.
These things degrade components in the
cell.
The barrier properties of plastic,
however, have now been greatly
improved, allowing us to make very stable
polymer solar cells.
The electrodes collect the charge carriers
and
provide contact to an outer electrical circuit.
They should be highly conductive
so the best materials are, of course,
metals.
But this poses a problem since one
electrode at least must be transparent
to allow light to penetrate into the cell
and into the active material.
One material, that combines both
properties are
indium tin oxide, or ITO, and this has
been used extensively in combination with
a material
call PEDOT:PSS, which is a good, hole
conductor.
Normal geometry devices most commonly used
ITO for the front electrode
and an evaporated metal such as aluminum
for the back electrode.
Indium is however a scarce material and
ITO is also very brittle.
So researchers have tried to find
alternatives as transparent electrode.
One option is to use a very thin metal
grid that does not block much
of the incoming light, in combination with
a
reasonably good semitransparent conductor
such as the PEDOT:PSS.
Trilayer structure of a silver grid,
PEDOT:PSS, and an
electron transport layer based on zinc
oxide has been
developed under the name Flextrode to
be used
as a successful substitute for ITO
inverted structure devices.
The inverted geometry also allow the use
of
other metals such as silver for the back
electrode.
This is a great advantage because it
is much more stable it is also oxygen
remote.
We also use intermediate layers, such as
the hole transport layer and the electron
transport layer to facilitate the
transport of
charge carriers to the electrodes.
Most commonly used hole conductor is, as
I mentioned before, PEDOT:PSS,
but recently also MoOx and V2O5, has been used.
Electron conductors can be TiO2,
or ZnO
and also LiF has been used.
Recently, also, CeCO3 has been
used in high efficiency solar cells as a resource.
The active material has been varied to a
great extent.
A huge number of different polymers have
been employed to maximize the harvesting
of sunlight.
As we have touched upon previously the two
components of the active layer can
be arranged either in a bilayer
or in what is called a hertojunciton.
This later arrangement is most beneficial
because
it minimizes the distance an exiton has
to migrate before it reaches a face
boundary between the donor and acceptor
materials.
This structure is obtained
somewhat randomly by
simply mixing the two components together
in a solvent.
When the solvent evaporates the components
have a tendency to microphase separate.
The generation of the best structure and how
to maintain it is subject of great study.
It is, for instance, possible to help the
phase separation
along by a heat treatment or exposure to
solvent vapors.
A more advanced structure is that of a
tandem solar cell,
which is, in effect, two cells on top of
each other.
They each harvest a different part of the
solar spectrum.
Potentially, doubling the achievable
efficiency by
adding up the voltage for each cell.
This is technically much more difficult,
since it
involves many more layers of materials and
also
because the cells must be balanced so that
approximately the same current is produced
in each.
This requires a selective choice of
polymer materials with different
absorption spectra.
So the top cell does not block light from
entering the bottom cell.
And now the challenge is to develop an
intermediate layer between the cells that
can form an ohmic contact to both
cells and transport charge carriers
between them.