Improved Efficiency of Thin Film Organic Photovoltaics via Optical Device Coupling

Organic photovoltaic devices (OPVs) are seen as a promising technology for improving the productivity of solar power, primarily because they can be manufactured relatively cheaply compared to traditionally more popular silicon-based cells, and have a wider variety of applications due to their low toxicity and high flexibility. The most persistent limitation of OPVs is that they are relatively inefficient in converting sunlight into power, as compared to their inorganic counterparts. In the work presented here, a variety of fabrication methods were employed to yield increasingly efficient OPVs based on the conductive polymer poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and the functionalized fullerene phenyl-C60-butyric acid methyl ester. The relationships between OPV film thickness, drying rate, absorbance, and current-voltage characteristics were analyzed in order to determine the potential of luminescent solar concentrators (LSCs) to increase OPV efficiency. Initial calculations based on optoelectronic theory predict that LSC-induced efficiency enhancement should be significant, but strongly dependent on OPV thickness