Alkyl chain linked conjugated polymers for stable polymer solar cells

Research Project, 2020 – 2023

Polymer solar cells (PSCs) is the promising next generation photovoltaic technology and has the potential to provide endless green and cheap electricity for a sustainable society. The efficiency of PSCs over 16% is high enough for commercialization, but the lifetime of PSCs limited by morphological stability of active layers is still far from practical long-term applications. To this end, I conceived a novel idea in which novel polymers equipped with functional alkyl chain pendants can firmly “lock” the morphology of the active layers and therefore significantly increase the morphological stability. The aims of this project are: 1) to have a fundamental understanding of morphological stability of active layers of PSCs; 2) to synthesize novel conjugated polymers equipped with alkyl chains that can “lock” the morphology of the active layers; 3) to realize solar cells based on these novel polymers with performances and stability exceeding the current state of the art.

Two PhD students and one postdoc will carry out this project from simulation, synthesis of polymers, characterization of film morphology, to device fabrication in 4 years. The success of this project, in the short term, can provide a solution to solve the morphological stability in PSCs—the bottlenecks for the commercialization of PSCs, and in the long term, can provide a fundamental understanding of the phase behaviors of conjugated polymer blends and inspire the development of organic electronics in general.