(May 25, 2015) Polymer
solar cells are a hot area of research due to both their strong future
potential and the significant challenges they pose. It is believed that thanks
to lower production costs, they could become a viable alternative to
conventional solar cells with silicon substrates when they achieve a power
conversion efficiency—a measure that indicates how much electricity they can
generate from a given amount of sunlight—of between 10 and 15 percent. Now,
using carefully designed materials and an “inverted” architecture, a team of
scientists has achieved efficiency of 10 percent, bringing these cells close to
the threshold of commercial viability.
Polymer-based solar cells offer a number of potential
advantages. They are made of polymers that are inexpensive and flexible, and
can be deposited on glass or plastic substrates, allowing the construction of
large-scale structures. They are cheaper to manufacture, and more
environmentally-friendly, than their silicon counterparts. Unfortunately, they
have lower power efficiency due to their structure and also tend to degrade
more quickly.