SBIR Phase I: Highly Efficient Solar Cells Based on the Liquid Crystal-Inorganic Nanocomposite

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes to study and develop novel, highly efficient photovoltaic cells based on composite material from nanostructured semiconductors and liquid crystals. The proposed approach has a number of advantages over existing technologies in the rapidly developing area of organic/plastic photovoltaics including easy processing using cost-effective techniques enabling the fabrication of large area solar cells onto flexible substrates, and a very fast charge transport due to the quasi-1D structure of the liquid crystal and continuous (bulk) medium of the semiconductor. The characteristic size of nanostructures filled with organics is comparable with the exciton diffusion length. Such a design provides 100% light harvesting without exciton loss due to remote interface area. The bicontinous network between the nanopatterned semiconductor and the organic component provides an enormous interface surface, thereby significantly increasing the charge separation. Nanocomposites can easily be integrated with other optoelectronic devices. Composite fabrication offers a large variety in the selection of organic components and does not require the lattice matching that strongly reduces material choice for semiconductor heterostructures. Such nanocomposite material should demonstrate superior photovoltaic properties providing a good chance to obtain 10% of energy conversion, still unachieved with organic solar cells. The commercial application of this project is in solar cells. Cost-effective processing, light weight, flexibility and robustness of the composite solar cells make them extremely attractive for various applications used by industry, the military and in research, e.g., security systems, offshore platforms, emergency power systems, and space applications.