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Production Aspects

of Organic Photovoltaics and Their Impact on the Commercialization of Devices

Christoph J. Brabec, Jens A. Hauch, Pavel Schilinsky, and Christoph Waldauf Abstract The essential cost-driving factor for the production of classical photovoltaic devices is the expensive investment in costly semiconductor processing technologies. This unfavorable cost structure has so far prohibited the technology from having a significant impact on global energy production. Nevertheless, the continued high interest in photovoltaics originates from the fact that they represent the only truly portable renewable-energy conversion technology available today. Therefore, the potential of fabricating organic photovoltaic elements on low-cost, thin plastic substrates by standard printing and coating techniques and packaged by lamination is not only intriguing, but highly attractive from a cost standpoint. In this article, we discuss the economic and technical production aspects for organic photovoltaics. Keywords: organic photovoltaics, polymer electronics, printing technologies.

Introduction The unfavorable cost structure of classical photovoltaic devices has so far prohibited the technology from having a significant impact on global energy production. Nevertheless, the continued high interest in photovoltaics originates from the fact that they represent the only truly portable renewable-energy conversion technology available today. The essential cost-driving factor for the production of photovoltaic cells is the expensive investment in costly semiconductor processing technologies. Therefore, the concept of fabricating photovoltaic elements on thin plastic substrates, manufactured by techniques such as reel-to-reel printing and coating and packaged by lamination is not 50

only intriguing, but highly attractive from a cost standpoint. In order to realize this idea, high-volume production technologies for large-area coating must be applied to a low-cost material class. Solutionprocessable organic and inorganic semiconductors have a high potential to fulfill these requirements. Flexible chemical tailoring allows the design of organic semiconductors with the desired properties, and printing or coating techniques like screen, inkjet, offset, and flexography are being established for semiconducting polymers today, driven by display and general electronic device demands. Altogether, organic photovoltaics have many attractive features, among them


the potential to be flexible and semitransparent;
the potential to be manufactured in a continuous printing process;
fabrication by means of large-area coating;
easy integration in a wide variety of devices;
significantly reduced costs compared with traditional photovoltaics; and
substantial ecological and economic advantages. These features are beneficial for commercialization; however, like their inorganic semiconductor counterparts, organic photovoltaics must fulfill the basic requirements for renewable energy production. In the energy market, the competitive position o