Issue 1, 2016

Increased upconversion performance for thin film solar cells: a trimolecular composition

Abstract

Photochemical upconversion based on triplet–triplet annihilation (TTA-UC) is employed to enhance the short-circuit currents generated by two varieties of thin-film solar cells, a hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) solar cell and a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC). TTA-UC is exploited to harvest transmitted sub-bandgap photons, combine their energies and re-radiate upconverted photons back towards the solar cells. In the present study we employ a dual-emitter TTA-UC system which allows for significantly improved UC quantum yields as compared to the previously used single-emitter TTA systems. In doing so we achieve record photo-current enhancement values for both the a-Si:H device and the DSC, surpassing 10−3 mA cm−2 sun−2 for the first time for a TTA-UC system and marking a record for upconversion-enhanced solar cells in general. We discuss pertinent challenges of the TTA-UC technology which need to be addressed in order to achieve its viable device application.

Graphical abstract: Increased upconversion performance for thin film solar cells: a trimolecular composition

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
28 Aug 2015
Accepted
09 Oct 2015
First published
09 Oct 2015
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2016,7, 559-568

Author version available

Increased upconversion performance for thin film solar cells: a trimolecular composition

Y. Y. Cheng, A. Nattestad, T. F. Schulze, R. W. MacQueen, B. Fückel, K. Lips, G. G. Wallace, T. Khoury, M. J. Crossley and T. W. Schmidt, Chem. Sci., 2016, 7, 559 DOI: 10.1039/C5SC03215F

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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