Open AccessPhotovoltaic Principles and Organic Solar Cells
Author(s) -
P. Würfel
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
chimia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.387
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 2673-2424
pISSN - 0009-4293
DOI - 10.2533/chimia.2007.770
Subject(s) - organic solar cell , photovoltaic system , photovoltaics , exciton , absorption (acoustics) , charge carrier , materials science , engineering physics , photon , solar cell , optoelectronics , hybrid solar cell , nanotechnology , polymer solar cell , physics , optics , engineering , electrical engineering , composite material , quantum mechanics
The fundamentals of photovoltaics are reviewed. The necessary requirements for material properties are discussed. Achieving high efficiency with organic solar cells is known to be difficult for two main reasons. Photon absorption does not directly lead to free charge carriers but to excitons with large binding energies which are difficult to dissociate. These excitons have diffusion lengths much smaller than the penetration depth of the incident light, making them difficult to process before their recombination. Ways are discussed how these shortcomings may be overcome. In principle, organic solar cells can be as efficient as inorganic solar cells if the right combination of materials can be found.