Rev.Adv.Mater.Sci. (RAMS)
No 1/2, Vol. 26, 2010, pages 58-66

STRUCTURAL IMPROVEMENT OF ORGANIC
PHOTOVOLTAIC CELL (OPVC) TOWARDS
HIGHER EFFICIENCY

M.A. Uddin, H.P. Chan and B.M.A. Rahman

Abstract

The organic photovoltaics cell (OPVC) is very promising owing to their potential of providing environmentally safe, flexible, lightweight, and inexpensive photovoltaic cell. There are, however, main unsolved problems of low power conversion efficiency. Up to now only about 6% power conversion efficiencies on the device level have been realized. The efficiency of OPVC is limited by several factors. One such factor is the limited overlap of the absorption spectra of organic materials with the light spectrum. A lot of efforts already made on the material development to better match the light spectrum. Another potential alternative method is the enhancing spectral coverage of OPVC. To enhance spectral coverage and photon harvesting, the structural improvements of the OPVC are very crucial. However, lesser effort has been paid in understanding the structural effects. This paper will discuss the structural improvement for higher efficient OPVC, and integrating them to address the future needs of the photovoltaic technology sector. Recent developments in photovoltaic architectures, geometries that result in the efficiency of OPVC are presented. The term "photovoltaic" is used here for the unspecified (including solar) light source rather than only "solar". The review can serve as a guide for increasing the efficiency of OPVC in energy industry.

full paper (pdf, 720 Kb)