Abstract
The emerging dye-sensitized solar cells, perovskite solar cells, and organic solar cells have been regarded as promising photovoltaic technologies. The device structures and components of these solar cells are imperative to the device’s efficiency and stability. Polymers can be used to adjust the device components and structures of these solar cells purposefully, due to their diversified properties. In dye-sensitized solar cells, polymers can be used as flexible substrates, pore- and film-forming agents of photoanode films, platinum-free counter electrodes, and the frameworks of quasi-solid-state electrolytes. In perovskite solar cells, polymers can be used as the additives to adjust the nucleation and crystallization processes in perovskite films. The polymers can also be used as hole transfer materials, electron transfer materials, and interface layer to enhance the carrier separation efficiency and reduce the recombination. In organic solar cells, polymers are often used as donor layers, buffer layers, and other polymer-based micro/nanostructures in binary or ternary devices to influence device performances. The current achievements about the applications of polymers in solar cells are reviewed and analyzed. In addition, the benefits of polymers for solar cells, the challenges for practical application, and possible solutions are also assessed.
Highlights
The rapidly growing population and world economy have led to the continuously growing energy demand [1]
The results indicated that the recombination risks at the interface of perovskite/Hole Transport Layers (HTLs) are higher than that of perovskite/electron transport layer (ETL) [176]
The results found that the devices based on the PCPDTBT, PCDTBT, and P3HT HTLs show the efficiency of 5.3%, 4.2% and 6.7%, respectively, lower than that based on the PTAA (9.0%)
Summary
The rapidly growing population and world economy have led to the continuously growing energy demand [1]. The laboratory efficiency can reach more than 25% [3], the development of traditional silicon-based solar cells was limited by the sophisticated manufacturing process, high energy consumption and high cost [4]. The emerging solar cells are represented by organic photovoltaics (OPV) [8], dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) [9] and perovskite solar cell (PSC) [10] This kind of solar cells have the advantages of lightweight and low cost. Even though the photoelectric conversion efficiency (PCE) of PSC has ranged from initial 3.8% to the latest 23.3% rapidly (Figure 1), the device stability is still a problem that limited the applications [13,14,15]. The applications of polymers in solar cells are mainly concentrated on DSSC, PSC, and OPV
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