Ink-Jet Printed, Thin-Film Solar Prototype By Konarka
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 03. 5.08
Konarka has stayed on a highly innovative path since we first posted about them in 2005. For some background on their thin film work, see Tim's posts, "Good News: Solar Cell Diversity Continues to Increase" and "Konarka Technologies Keeps the US Army in Solar Power.." We like the "Fullerene Blends" terminology. Bucky would have enjoyed it. The latest innovation is in manufacturing technology.
Konarka Technologies, Inc., an innovator in development and commercialization of Power Plastic®, a material that converts light to energy, today announced the company successfully conducted the first-ever demonstration of manufacturing solar cells by highly efficient inkjet printing. The company discusses and analyzes the performance of highly efficient inkjet printed organic bulk heterojunction solar cells in a paper recently published in Advanced Materials, entitled, “High Photovoltaic Performance of Inkjet Printed Polymer:Fullerene Blends” by Dr. Stelios A. Choulis, Claudia N. Hoth, Dr. Pavel Schilinsky and Dr. Christoph J. Brabec, all of Konarka.
Note: Access to a full length Journal of Advanced Materials article is by $25 fee, and no free abstract is available; hence this post has no further details to offer. Additionally, we have no idea which model/brand of ink jet printer might have been used and so have chosen for this post a photo of the Konarka Temple in India, which apparently has served as inspiration for one of the company founders.
Image credit: Konarka
From the paper:
"Based on the newly developed
solvent mixture, we have demonstrated a 3 % PCE solar cell
with inkjet printed polymer:fullerene blend photoactive layer.
This high photovoltaic performance indicates the potential of
inkjet printing for the mass production of organic photovoltaics."
This compares with a 5.21 PCE (power conversion efficiency) they achieved for a conventionally produced plastic thin film device (NREL certified)