United States – A polymer solar cell of a new genre was developed by a team of international researchers from the University of Santa Barbara, Heeger Center and the University of Laval in Quebec.

The performance is almost perfect for this type of cell: almost every photon absorbed is converted into a pair of electrical charge carriers and each of these pairs is at the electrodes.

The overall efficiency of such a cell is 6%, which means that 6% of the absorbed energy is converted into electricity. The figure may seem paltry, but the overall performance of polymer photovoltaic cells before have never exceeded 5%. The result is more encouraging, because it allows to consider a commercial application and cost effective.

This type of cell is also much cheaper to produce and lighter than conventional solar panels such as those using silicon. Another advantage: they are much more flexible to use.

Make “copolymer” is a polymer containing two alternate polymer chains, which release electrons when they are affected by sunlight. With some green lights, the efficiency can reach 17%. These results suggest that this type of technology, further, could one day reach 10 or 15% efficiency.