Lithuanian university makes breakthrough in hybrid solar cells

Researchers at the Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) in Lithuania have developed material which offers much cheaper alternative to current hybrid solar cells technology, science news website Science Daily reports.

The efficiency of the solar cells containing organic semiconductors created by the team of KTU’s chemists was confirmed at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne.

The tests show that the efficiency of the cells’ converting solar energy into electricity was 16.9%. Quite impressive, as only a handful of other organic semiconductors had achieved such a high solar cell efficiency.

“The material created by us is considerably cheaper and the process of its synthesis is less complicated than that of the currently used analogue material. Also, both materials have very similar efficiency of converting solar energy into electricity.” says professor Vytautas Getautis, head of the chemistry research group responsible for the discovery.

At present, almost all solar cells are made from inorganic semiconductors. Hybrid, semi-organic solar cells are still being developed and perfected at the research centres all over the world.

KTU and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne have registered the invention at the European Patent Office.

Read full article in English at ScienceDaily.com