Professor Doo Kyung Moon from Division of Chemical Engineering at College of Engineering announced on the 4th that his research team developed the world’s first high efficiency hybrid buffer technology that can be introduced into organic photovoltaics.This research is about the development of a large area photovoltaic module using a solution process regardless of the type of optical active layer of organic photovoltaics. It is published as a cover thesis in 16th Issue, 2021, of ACS (Applied Materials & Interfaces) (IF=8.758), a top 0.5% journal cited by ESI (Essential Science Indicators) and top 10% of material science and multidisciplinary studies. (thesis title: Printable and Semitransparent Nonfullerene Organic Solar Modules over 30 cm2 Introducing an Energy-Level Controllable Hole Transport Layer,DOI: https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.1c01021)
Image 1. Cover thesis of Prof. Moon’s team on ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (IF=8.758)
Prof. Moon’s team developed a technology that shows up to 7.2% efficiency in module of 30.cm2 and 22.3% permeability in visible light regions while conducting limit-overcoming alchemist project (zero energy window through the development of transparent organic photovoltaics materials and elements).
It is one of the challenges to produce transparent photovoltaics that satisfy high efficiency and high permeability at the same time due to trade-offs of the introduced electrodes. Prof. Yongwoon Han and Dr. Hyungseok Lee from the Academy of Applied Science and Technology at College of Engineering, who shared the co-first authorship, are conducting a research on hybrid buffer layer materials that can match energy levels with various nonfullerene photoactivity layer materials, macromolecular and oxide semiconductors.
With the proven excellence of the newly announced hybrid buffer layer, it can freely adjust the energy level depending on the amount of materials included, and showed high level of conductivity and permeability.
The hybrid buffer layer succeeded in adjusting the energy level of self-developed nonfullerene photoactivity materials, and the research team developed a large area module with the methods of spin-coating, slot-die coating and bar-coating. This is by far the best result of area-to-area efficiency and permeability of a module at a time when the research results of a small area transparent photovoltaics are being announced. This is expected to be another success following Prof. Moon's team's achievement of high-efficiency organic photovoltaic source technology (with 16% efficiency), and it is expected to be developed into a next-generation photovoltaic technology used in urban development such as building integrated photovoltaics (BIPVs) and automobile integrated photovoltaics (AIPVs).
Currently, Prof. Moon's team has transparent photovoltaic patents and certification results that show 8.75% efficiency (with 39.4% transmittance) in 1.0 cm2 light-active area through its own material and transparent electrode technology, and it is expected to be a breakthrough to overcome the limitations.Image 2. Development strategy and conceptual diagram of energy-level adjustable hybrid buffer layer developed by Prof. Moon’s team
Image 3. Opaque modules and semi-translucent modules with the introduction of photoactivity and buffer-layer materials developed by Prof. Moon’s team