Polymeric materials for photon management in photovoltaics

Abstract

In the field of photovoltaics, achieving high efficiency in both light absorption and light trapping simultaneously remains challenging. Photon management, which refers to the engineering of materials and device architectures to control the spatial or spectral distribution of optical energy, offers a number of promising approaches for the optimization of this tradeoff. Among these are antireflective structures with pronounced surface patterned profiles that reduce surface reflectivity, light trapping approaches but also spectral conversion concepts. With the continuous development of photovoltaic device architectures and designs, the engineering of novel photon management strategies and the availability of suitably tailored polymeric materials for such applications will contribute to enhanced device efficiencies as well as sustained long-term performance. In this review, we summarize the recent progress in the development and implementation of photon management strategies for different photovoltaic technologies specifically based on the use of polymeric materials, and we discuss their contribution to the field.