Multi-junction Polymer Solar Cells: Recent Trends and Challenges

Abstract

There is a need of neat and clean energy sources particularly comparable with fossil fuels. Solar energy is a neat and clean form of energy which is available in huge amount. Solar energy can be directly transformed to the electrical energy using photovoltaic device. These photovoltaic devices also called solar cells which are based on photoelectric effect. Previously different solar cells have been developed like dye sensitized solar cells, organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, perovskite solar cells, and polymer solar cells. In last few years, polymer solar cells attracted more attention because of their light weight, excellent mechanical flexibility, and cost effectiveness. Polymer solar cells have shown good power conversion efficiency of 7.9% and showed the potential of polymers in solar cell applications. There is a need of unique design and new device structures with novel materials to further improve the performance of the polymer solar cells. This will be helpful to make this technology for practical applications. The polymer multi-junction solar cells comprised of two or more subcells in a series or parallel connections. This reduces the current loss in the single-junction polymer solar cells. In this chapter, we have discussed the recent advances and challenges in polymer tandem/multi-junction solar cells. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights are reserved.