Recovery Act - ZnO/ZnS/P3HT Core-Shell Heterostrucure Organic Hybrid Solar Cells

State-of-the-Art Organic solar cells such as Polymer-fullerene using P3HT-PCBM have a 1 sun AM 1.5 power conversion efficiency of ~ 4.4%. We herein propose to develop substrate agnostic hybrid photovoltaic structures combining a ZnO contact layer, lattice strain accommodating ZnO nanorod cores with ZnS quantum well bandgap tuning photon absorbing shells and a P3HT voltage enhancement layer. The proposed solar cell has a theoretical Shockley-Quiesser efficiency limit of 23%. In Phase I we will demonstrate proof of concept cells with >5% efficiency and >1Voc as well as develop the production process active layer deposition tooling. In Phase II we will scale the produced cells and refine the process to establish a) cells operating at >10% and b) a pilot production capability of well characterized solar cells. Phase III will be production scale-up