Development of roll-roll processed, low-cost, and flexible organic solar cells

Solar cells based on organic materials, also called organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs), have attracted broad research interest due to their low-cost, flexibility and light weight. However, OPV technology remains in pre-commercial stage primarily due to the lack of manufacturing process. Despite a lot of improvement in efficiency, limited attention has been dedicated to develop production technologies for low-cost and large-scale manufacturing of OPVs. In addition, the lifetime and stability of OPV cells is still questionable. In this proposal, Solarmer Energy proposes a comprehensive research plan which will deal with the challenges of manufacturing OPVs at low-cost and improving stability. The overall goal of this Phase I research project is to demonstrate the feasibility of roll-to-roll production of flexible OPV cells in ambient environment. It is also a goal of this project to demonstrate OPV cells that are stable under continuous incident light. At the end of the proposed project we will demonstrate a flexible, monolithically integrated OPV module with 10 series cells and total module area of 100 cm2, with module efficiency of 5% and T80 lifetime of at least 500 hours under continuous illumination of 1 Sun.