Recovery Act - High Performance Organic Photovoltaics via Novel Materials Combinations

Solar power based on photovoltaic (PV) technologies can address significant portions of the growing energy demand, provided it can be cost-competitive. While the incumbent silicon technology has not proven to be competitive in the absence of heavy government subsidies, printed organic photovoltaics (OPV) is a solution that can meet all of the challenges because of its low-cost materials and manufacturing processes. Plextronics, Inc. and Solarmer Energy Inc., two world leaders in OPV technology will collaborate to further develop the technology and enable broad commercialization of the same. During the course of this Phase I DOE-SBIR program, Plextronics will partner with Solarmer to develop novel materials systems and establish a pathway toward achieving greater than 10% power conversion efficiency in the future. This will be accomplished by blending Solarmer