Lecture

Solar Energy Conversion

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In course

MSE-486: Organic electronic materials

This course will introduce students to the field of organic electronic materials. The goal of this course is to discuss the origin of electronic properties in organic materials, charge transport mechanisms, chemical synthesis, materials processing, and dev ...

Description

This lecture covers the development of oil supplies, the historic perspective of energy consumption, the potential of solar energy to replace traditional sources, various methods of solar energy conversion, organic solar cells, the working principle of solar cells, differences between inorganic and organic materials, mechanisms for charge generation, solar spectrum conditions, quantum efficiencies, donor materials, exciton diffusion, charge separation, device structures, and printing techniques for polymer solar cells.

Instructor

Holger Frauenrath

Holger Frauenrath (born in Aachen, Germany) studied chemistry at RWTH Aachen , Germany from 1992 to 1997, with a focus on synthetic organic chemistry. He performed his PhD thesis from 1998 to 2001 in the research group of Prof Hartwig Höcker at RWTH Aachen, working on a project related to the stereospecific polymerization of methacrylates as well as their copolymerization with olefins using zirconocene catalysts. Holger Frauenrath then joined the group of Prof. Sam Stupp at Northwestern University , Evanston, IL, USA, as a postdoctoral fellow supported by a Feodor Lynen fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation . His postdoctoral research projects were centered around the supramolecular self-assembly of rod-coil molecules. Holger Frauenrath returned to Germany in 2003 and started to build his own research group at FU Berlin, funded with an Emmy Noether Grant from the German Science Foundation . In 2005, the research group moved to the Department of Materials at ETH Zurich , Switzerland, where it became a scientifcally independent part of the Polymer Chemistry Group led by Prof. A. Dieter Schlüter . Holger Frauenrath obtained his Habilitation from ETH Zurich in 2009. In 2009, Holger Frauenrath has been appointed as a professor at the Institute of Materials (IMX) of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) , Switzerland, building the new Laboratory of Macromolecular and Organic Materials (LMOM) . In the same year, Holger Frauenrath was received the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Investigator grant.

Official source

Ontological neighbourhood

Energy engineering

Solar power: Topics in solar power

Related concepts (32)

Organic solar cell

An organic solar cell (OSC) or plastic solar cell is a type of photovoltaic that uses organic electronics, a branch of electronics that deals with conductive organic polymers or small organic molecules, for light absorption and charge transport to produce electricity from sunlight by the photovoltaic effect. Most organic photovoltaic cells are polymer solar cells. The molecules used in organic solar cells are solution-processable at high throughput and are cheap, resulting in low production costs to fabricate a large volume.

Hybrid solar cell

Hybrid solar cells combine advantages of both organic and inorganic semiconductors. Hybrid photovoltaics have organic materials that consist of conjugated polymers that absorb light as the donor and transport holes. Inorganic materials in hybrid cells are used as the acceptor and electron transporter in the structure. The hybrid photovoltaic devices have a potential for not only low-cost by roll-to-roll processing but also for scalable solar power conversion. Solar cells are devices that convert sunlight into electricity by the photovoltaic effect.

Solar cell

A solar cell, or photovoltaic cell, is an electronic device that converts the energy of light directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect, which is a physical phenomenon. It is a form of photoelectric cell, defined as a device whose electrical characteristics, such as current, voltage, or resistance, vary when exposed to light. Individual solar cell devices are often the electrical building blocks of photovoltaic modules, known colloquially as solar panels.

Solar-cell efficiency

Solar-cell efficiency refers to the portion of energy in the form of sunlight that can be converted via photovoltaics into electricity by the solar cell. The efficiency of the solar cells used in a photovoltaic system, in combination with latitude and climate, determines the annual energy output of the system. For example, a solar panel with 20% efficiency and an area of 1 m2 will produce 200 kWh/yr at Standard Test Conditions if exposed to the Standard Test Condition solar irradiance value of 1000 W/m2 for 2.

Thin-film solar cell

Thin-film solar cells are made by depositing one or more thin layers (thin films or TFs) of photovoltaic material onto a substrate, such as glass, plastic or metal. Thin-film solar cells are typically a few nanometers (nm) to a few microns (μm) thick–much thinner than the wafers used in conventional crystalline silicon (c-Si) based solar cells, which can be up to 200 μm thick. Thin-film solar cells are commercially used in several technologies, including cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS), and amorphous thin-film silicon (a-Si, TF-Si).

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