On October 22nd, Academician Yong Cao and his team from South China University of Technology designed the polymer photovoltaic materials through chemical structure micro-regulation to achieve a certified photovoltaic efficiency of more than 12% for 1cm2 polymer solar cells. The related results are published in the internationally renowned journal Nature Energy under the title “Fine-tuning of the chemical structure of photoactive materials for highly efficient organic photovoltaics”. The first authorof the paper is Dr. Baobing Fan, with Professor Fei Huang (SCUT), Professor Lei Ying(SCUT), and Dr. Ning Li (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) as the corresponding authers, South China University of Technology as the first unit of the affiliation.
Photovoltaic technology converts clean and renewable solar energy into electricity that can be used by humans directly. With the advantages of low preparation cost, easy adjustment of photoelectric characteristics, translucency and large-area flexible devices, polymer solar cells have great commercial value and application prospects.In general, high-efficiency polymer solar cells can only be achieved with a small effective irradiation area (<0.05cm2). In this study, a series of novel electron donors were developed from the micro-regulation of the chemical structure of polymer donor materials. By studying the differences and laws of optical, electrical, and aggregation properties, the optimal materials combination reached a 12.25% photoelectric conversion efficiency in the 1cm2 device,showing excellent stability and broad prospects in market application.
Introducion to the Authors:
Dr. Baobing Fan, postdoctoral fellow at South China University of Technology, is mainly engaged in the design of polymer semiconductor materials and the research in the performance of organic solar cell devices. He has published 8 SCI papers in journals like Nature Energy, Energy & Environmental Science, Advanced Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Functional Materials and others, of which 3 are ESI highly cited papers.
Lei Ying, researcher (professor), doctoral supervisor, is mainly engaged in the research and application of key technologies for organic polymer optoelectronic functional materials. He has published more than 140 papers in journals such as Nat. Commun., Energy Environ. Sci., Adv. Mater., and others, and has been cited for more than 3,500 times. 11 papers of his have been selected as the ESI Highly Cited Papers. He has also obtained the National Natural Science Foundation Excellent Youth Funding, Guangdong Outstanding Youth Funding and other fundings, and was selected as a young talent in the Guangdong Special Support Program.
Fei Huang, deputy director of the State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, winner of the National Outstanding Youth Funding (2011), and Distinguished ChangJiang Scholar of MOE (2016). He is mainly engaged in the research of new organic polymer optoelectronic functional materials. He has published more than 200 SCI papers and has been cited for more than 11,000 times. He has been selected as a globally highly cited scientist in ESI in materials discipline. He has been awarded the second prize of National Natural Science Foundation in 2010 and 2015, the Arthur K. Doolittle Award of the American Chemical Society in 2014, and the first Young Scientist Award of the Ministry of Education in 2015.
