Study of organic photovoltaics by localized concentrated sunlight: towards optimization of charge collection in large-area solar cells

Large-area organic solar cells are known to suffer from a major efficiency decrease which originates from the combination of a voltage drop across the front electrode and the voltage-dependent photocurrent. In this letter, we demonstrate this efficiency loss on large area, indium tin oxide free cells with a hexagonal current collecting front grid, by measurements of light intensity dependence of the cell performance. The results show a major difference in the cell performance measured under localized and uniform illuminations. Subsequently, we demonstrate ways in which the current collecting efficiency could be raised. © 2011 American Institute of Physics