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Small Molecule Solar Cells

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Molecular Devices for Solar Energy Conversion and Storage

Part of the book series: Green Chemistry and Sustainable Technology ((GCST))

Abstract

In the last years, organic photovoltaics have moved from a lab curiosity to a commercially viable technology. In this chapter, we consider organic photovoltaics based on oligomers (“small molecules”) which are deposited by vacuum sublimation. While the physics of the small molecule materials is in many ways very similar to those of polymer organic materials, there are significant differences in materials synthesis, processing, and device concepts. We review a few classes of small molecule solar cell materials and discuss their properties in devices. We discuss device concepts for small molecule organic solar cells, in particular pin devices based on doped transport layers and cascade designs. We point out the points where devices can be improved and describe paths to higher efficiencies, including multi-junction devices which can be very well realized with small molecule organic semiconductors.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the many people who have been involved in the work which is presented in this Chapter. In particular, we thank Peter Bäuerle and his coworkers (University of Ulm) for preparation of the thiophene compounds. At IAPP, we thank Johannes Benduhn, Janine Fischer, Felix Holzmüller, Rico Meerheim, Moritz Riede, Reinhgard Scholz, Johannes Widmer, Max Tietze, and many more which cannot be named all here. We thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for their support in the framework of SPP 1355 “Organic Photovoltaics” and the BMBF for support in the “Innoprofile” framework.

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  1. Dresden Integrated Center for Applied Physics and Photonic Materials (IAPP), TU Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany

    Tobias Moench, Christian Koerner, Vasileios Christos Nikolis, Koen Vandewal & Karl Leo

  2. Robert Bosch GmbH, Car Multimedia, Optics Development, 71226, Leonberg, Germany

    Tobias Moench

  3. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St. Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews, KY16 9SS, UK

    Caroline Murawski & Jan Murawski

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  1. Department of Chemistry—Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Haining Tian

  2. Department of Chemistry—Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Gerrit Boschloo

  3. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Anders Hagfeldt

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Moench, T. et al. (2018). Small Molecule Solar Cells. In: Tian, H., Boschloo, G., Hagfeldt, A. (eds) Molecular Devices for Solar Energy Conversion and Storage. Green Chemistry and Sustainable Technology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5924-7_1

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