Beyond Shockley-Queisser: Molecular Approaches to High-Efficiency Photovoltaics.
Molecular materials afford abundant flexibility in the tunability of physical and electronic properties. As such, they are ideally suited to engineering low-cost, flexible, light-harvesting materials that break away from the single-threshold paradigm. Single-threshold solar cells are capable of harvesting a maximum of 33.7% of incident sunlight, whereas two-threshold cells are capable of energy harvesting efficiencies exceeding 45%. In this Perspective, we provide the theoretical background with which upper efficiency limits for various multiple-threshold solar cell architectures may be calculated and review and discuss various reports that employ processes such as triplet-triplet annihilation and singlet fission in multiple-threshold devices comprised of molecular materials.
†School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, ‡School of Physics, and ¶School of Chemistry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.
Murad J Y
MJ
Tayebjee
†School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, ‡School of Physics, and ¶School of Chemistry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.
Dane R
DR
McCamey
†School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering, ‡School of Physics, and ¶School of Chemistry, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales 2052, Australia.
Timothy W
TW
Schmidt