DAMASCO · Preparation and Application of new n-type, Electron Acceptor Materials in Organic Solar Cells

Organic Photovoltaics have advantages compared to traditional inorganic solar cells, offering the prospect of low fabrication cost and flexiblility. The properties of organic and polymeric materials, open the perspective of a widely distributed photovoltaic low cost mass production. For this development to take place, the devices power conversion efficiency have to reach 10% and their lifetime have to increase. The development of polymer based solar cells has made significant progress but more research in the design and synthesis of new photoactive organic materials is needed.Bulk-heterojunction (BHJ) organic solar cells have active layers composed by electron-donating p-type semiconductors and electron-acceptor n-type materials. DAMASCO project will contribute to the design, synthesis and testing of new electron acceptor molecules and polymers with n-type properties for organic BHJ solar cells.Perylene diimides dyes are a significant class of n-type organic semiconductors for optoelectronics. These materials have good thermal and photochemical stability, high electron affinity, high absorption and their electronic properties can be easily modified via chemical tailoring by introducing substituent groups. Due to these properties, perylenes are candidates for organic photovoltaics. DAMASCO will develop novel perylene based molecules and polymers with n-type semiconduction properties and good solar harvesting.DAMASCO project has the following objectives: 1) design and synthesis of novel electron acceptor perylene based systems; 2) preparation and characterization of polymeric donor/acceptor photoactive blends; 3) assembling of BHJ solar cells and photovoltaic performance evaluation.The expected results are: a) new highly stable molecules and polymers with n-type semiconduction properties; b) nanostructured photoactive layer made of polythiophenes and perylene acceptor systems; c) BHJ solar cells with good harvesting of the solar light and longer live time.