Organic Materials for Solar Photovoltaics

A promising new technology for photovoltaic energy conversion involves the use of organic materials in lamellar photovoltaic cells. We are exploring the use of new organic materials as donors, acceptors and buffer layers in organic photovoltaic cells (OPVs). We have found that metalloporphyrins and subphthalocyanines make excellent donor materials in OPVs, with some giving higher than expected open circuit voltages. The properties of these devices and model for understanding the origin of the open circuit voltage for OPVs will be presented.