Associate Prof. Hideo Ohkita and his collaborators at Kyoto University have succeeded in improving the efficiency of plastic solar cells based on a blend of poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and a fullerene derivative (PCBM) by incorporating a heterostructured silicon phthalocyanine derivative (SiPcBz6). By mimicking surfactants with amphiphilic heterostructures, which spontaneously segregate to an interface between water and oil, they synthesized a new near-IR dye with two different axial ligands: one is compatible with P3HT and the other is compatible with PCBM. Because of the compatibility with both donor and acceptor materials, the heterostructured SiPcBz6 dye can be loaded up to 15 wt% and hence the best power conversion efficiency was improved from 3.8 to 4.8% compared to those of P3HT/PCBM binary control cells.
Researcher Information
JST PRESTO
Research Area “Photoenergy conversion systems and materials for the next generation solar cells”
Research Theme “Spectroscopic exploration of photon-electron conversion mechanisms in polymer solar cells”
Journal Information
Huajun Xu, Hideo Ohkita, Yasunari Tamai, Hiroaki Benten, and Shinzaburo Ito. “Interface Engineering for Ternary Blend Polymer Solar Cells with Heterostructured Near-IR Dye”. Advanced Materials, Published online 27 August 2015, doi: 10.1002/adma.201502773.
Contact
[About Research]
Hideo Ohkita, Ph.D.
Associated Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University
E-mail: 
URL: http://www.photo.polym.kyoto-u.ac.jp/
[About Program]
Masashi Furukawa
Green Innovation Group, Department of Innovation Research, JST
E-mail: 