Organometallic Photovoltaics: A New and Versatile Approach for Harvesting Solar Energy Using Conjugated Polymetallaynes

摘要

Energy remains one of the world’s great challenges. Growing con-ncerns about limited fossil fuel resources and the accumulation of CO2nin the atmosphere from burning those fuels have stimulated tremen-ndous academic and industrial interest. Researchers are focusing both onndeveloping inexpensive renewable energy resources and on improvingnthe technologies for energy conversion.nSolar energy has the capacity to meet increasing global energynneeds. Harvesting energy directly from sunlight using photovoltaic tech-nnology significantly reduces atmospheric emissions, avoiding the detri-nmental effects of these gases on the environment. Currently inorganicnsemiconductors dominate the solar cell production market, but thesenmaterials require high technology production and expensive materials,nmaking electricity produced in this manner too costly to compete withnconventional sources of electricity. Researchers have successfully fabri-ncated efficient organic-based polymer solar cells (PSCs) as a lower cost alternative. Recently, metalated conjugated poly-nmers have shown exceptional promise as donor materials in bulk-heterojunction solar cells and are emerging as viablenalternatives to the all-organic congeners currently in use. Among these metalated conjugated polymers, soluble platinum(II)-ncontaining poly(arylene ethynylene)s of variable bandgaps (∼1.4 3.0 eV) represent attractive candidates for a cost-neffective, lightweight solar-energy conversion platform.