Organic Solar Cells: Linking Nanoscale to Gigawatts?

摘要

In these times of booming interest in photovoltaic technologies, organic solar cells take a special position. In itself 'organic solar cells' is already an ill-defined term, which deserves further clarification. Secondly, the physical phenomena which are at the basis of its photovoltaic operation and the tight link of its photovoltaic performance with nanomorphological features make it particularly attractive for the scientific community. Last but not least, from an economic perspective, the extremely high manufacturing throughput potential of these technologies bears the promise of a disruptive low-cost technology which attracts many investors. Based on all these perspectives, organic solar cells recently made their appearance in photovoltaic technology roadmaps. For all of these reasons, it was decided to publish a special issue of Progress in Photovoltaics on organic solar cells with the aim to shed more light on a number of scientific challenges associated with this emerging PV-technology like stability, link between nanomorphology and performance and to provide an outlook on potential efficiencies achievable with this technology.