The future of high-efficiency organic solar cells and organic electronics in general lies in the development of three-dimensional polymers made of these materials.  The efficiency of solar cells that convert sunlight into useable electrical energy are governed by the movement of energy and electrons within the material of which they are composed.  It is known that electron or “charge” transfer has a high probability of forming energy-draining and efficiency limiting triplet states, whereas energy transfer is a lossless method of energy movement which preserves the spin of the initial excited state.  Currently, constructing organic materials that favor energy transfer over charge transfer are limited by production methods and the fact that the most productive states are thermodynamically unfavorable in their formation.  One possible way to circumvent this drawback is to engineer, design, and produce three-dimensional polymers where the unfavorable states are “locked-in” to the material structure directly via strong chemical bonds, as opposed to the current self-assembly methods that depend on weak intermolecular interactions to form solid state organic materials for solar cells.  The ability to control the movement of energy and electrons in three-dimensional polymers composed of organic materials presents the potential for constructing a wide range of electronic devices other than solar cells: buffers, memory storage, processors, and even conductors linking these components can all be constructed within a single three-dimensional polymer.

Three-dimensional polymers for organic electronics applications

ACS Fall 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.