Proceedings of Materials for Sustainable Development Conference (MAT-SUS) (NFM22)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29363/nanoge.nfm.2022.215
Publication date: 11th July 2022
Organic semiconductor-based photovoltaic (OPV) devices have many properties that make them attractive for indoor applications, such as tailorable light absorption, low embodied energy manufacturing and cost, structural conformality, and low material toxicity. Compared to their use as organic solar cells for standard outdoor solar harvesting, indoor OPV (IOPV) devices operate at low light intensities and thus demonstrate different area-scaling behaviour. In particular, the performance of large-area IOPV devices is much less affected by the sheet resistances of the transparent conductive electrodes (a major limit in organic solar cells), but instead by factors such as their shunt resistance at low light intensities. Herein, we review physical insight into IOPV systems using drift-diffusion and finite element modelling and compare this to real devices measured under indoor lighting conditions. Measurement considerations for IOPV devices are reviewed to accurately compare figures of merit necessary for the systems integration into the internet of things (IoT) and embedded sensor applications.