Article abstract
Nature Materials 6, 521 - 527 (2007)
Published online: 13 May 2007 | doi:10.1038/nmat1909
There is a Correspondence and Authors' response (October 2007) associated with this Article.
Subject Categories: Polymers | Optical, photonic and optoelectronic materials | Materials for energy
Metallated conjugated polymers as a new avenue towards high-efficiency polymer solar cells
Wai-Yeung Wong1,2,
Xing-Zhu Wang1,
Ze He1,
Aleksandra B. Djuri
i
3,
Cho-Tung Yip3,
Kai-Yin Cheung3,
Hai Wang3,
Chris S. K. Mak4
&
Wai-Kin Chan4
Abstract
Bulk heterojunction solar cells have been extensively studied owing to their great potential for cost-effective photovoltaic devices. Although recent advances resulted in the fabrication of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT)/fullerene derivative based solar cells with efficiencies in the range 4.4–5.0%, theoretical calculations predict that the development of novel donor materials with a lower bandgap is required to exceed the power-conversion efficiency of 10%. However, all of the lower bandgap polymers developed so far have failed to reach the efficiency of P3HT-based cells. To address this issue, we synthesized a soluble, intensely coloured platinum metallopolyyne with a low bandgap of 1.85 eV. The solar cells, containing metallopolyyne/fullerene derivative blends as the photoactive material, showed a power-conversion efficiency with an average of 4.1%, without annealing or the use of spacer layers needed to achieve comparable efficiency with P3HT. This clearly demonstrates the potential of metallated conjugated polymers for efficient photovoltaic devices.
- Department of Chemistry, Hong Kong Baptist University, Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, PR China
- Centre for Advanced Luminescence Materials, Hong Kong Baptist University, Waterloo Road, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, PR China
- Department of Physics, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, PR China
- Department of Chemistry, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, PR China
Correspondence to: Wai-Yeung Wong1,2 e-mail: rwywong@hkbu.edu.hk
Correspondence to: Aleksandra B. Djurii3
e-mail: dalek@hkusua.hku.hk
MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS
These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.
NEWS AND VIEWS
Organic semiconductors An equal-opportunity conductorNature Materials News and Views (01 Oct 2003)
RESEARCH
On the efficiency of polymer solar cellsNature Materials Correspondence (01 Oct 2007)
On the efficiency of polymer solar cellsNature Materials Correspondence (01 Oct 2007)
Morphology evolution via self-organization and lateral and vertical diffusion in polymer:fullerene solar cell blendsNature Materials Article (01 Feb 2008)
Bulk heterojunction solar cells with internal quantum efficiency approaching 100%Nature Photonics Article (01 May 2009)
See all 21 matches for Research
