Organic photovoltaics has come into the international research focus during the past three years. Up to now main efforts have focused on the improvement of the solar conversion efficiency, and in recent efforts 5% white light efficiencies on the device level have been realized. Despite this in comparison to inorganic technologies low efficiency, organic photovoltaics is evaluated as one of the ...

Since the 1970s, installed solar photovoltaic capacity has grown tremendously to 230 gigawatt worldwide in 2015, with a growth rate between 1975 and 2015 of 45%. This rapid growth has led to concerns regarding the energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions of photovoltaics production. We present a review of 40 years of photovoltaics development, analysing the development of energy demand a...

We study the effect of polymer thickness, hole mobility, and morphology on the device properties of polymer-based photovoltaics consisting of MEH-PPV as the optically active layer, TiO2 as the exciton dissociation surface, and ITO and Au electrodes. We demonstrate that the conversion efficiency in these polymerbased photovoltaics is primarily limited by the short exciton diffusion length combin...

The extension of the light absorption of photovoltaics into the near-infrared region is important to increase the energy conversion efficiency. Although the progress of the lead halide perovskite solar cells is remarkable, and high conversion efficiency of >20% has been reached, their absorption limit on the long-wavelength side is ∼800 nm. To further enhance the conversion efficiency of perovs...

Congratulations! You are reading a book about a technology that has changed the way we think about energy. Solar electricity, also known as photovoltaics (PV), has shown since the 1970s that the human race can get a substantial portion of its electrical power without burning fossil fuels (coal, oil or natural gas) or creating nuclear fission reactions. Photovoltaics helps us avoid most of the t...

The direct conversion of solar energy to electricity can be broadly separated into two main categories: photovoltaics and thermal photovoltaics, where the former utilizes gradients in electrical potential and the latter thermal gradients. Conventional thermal photovoltaics has a high theoretical efficiency limit (84%) but in practice cannot be easily miniaturized and is limited by the engineeri...

The unlimited abundance of solar resources ensures that photovoltaic technologies have the potential to supply a significant amount of the energy required to fulfill currentand futureenergy demands while reducing greenhousegases emissions. So far, the high cost of photovoltaics compared to other energy sources has limited their use. However, emerging technologies, such as organic photovoltaics ...

Semi-transparent organic photovoltaics are of interest for a variety of photovoltaic applications, including solar windows and hybrid tandem photovoltaics. The figure shows a photograph of our semi-transparent solar cell, which has a power conversion efficiency of 5.0%, with an above bandgap transmission of 34% and a sub-bandgap transmission of 81%.

In the last ten years, the highest efficiency obtained from organic photovoltaics (OPVs), such as bulk heterojunction polymer:fullerene solar cells, has risen from 2.5 to 11 %. This rapid progress suggests that the commercialization of OPVs should be realized soon if we can solve some technical issues. The advances in the development of OPVs can be attributed to four fronts: (i) a better unders...