Development and scale-up of very low-cost, light-weight, flexible solar cells

The overall objective of the proposal is to use an integrated approach combining material, interface, device, and process engineering to demonstrate high-performance OPV module fabricated from all-solution and ambient process. The specific objectives of the program can be enumerated as follows: 1) Optimize current Soluxra's donor and acceptor materials to improve the performance and morphological stability of OPV with target PCE of>8% for small area device (10 mm2). 2) Fabricate an OPV module with inverted device architecture using all solution deposition methods under ambient processes. Develop new charge selective materials for an interfacial layer to reduce interfacial recombination loss and enhance the interfacial stability and charge selectivity at the charge collecting electrodes for inverted OPV. 3) Demonstrate a new transparent electrode with high transparency (>85%), low sheet resistance (<10 ohm/sq), and superior mechanically robustness for flexible OPV. 4) Implement new PV materials in inverted device structures for highly efficient and stable devices. Further optimize a complete device architecture including active layers, buffer layers, electrode and encapsulation to demonstrate a 4% PCE module with a translational efficiency (module/champion cell) of>60%.