Green fluorescent protein chromophore inspired biodegradable material for ternary active layer organic solar cell

Increasing efficiency of well-established and well-studied P3HT:PCBM blend solar cells will make them more attractive for their commercial use. In this work, a molecule from the imidazolin-5-one family, referred to as M1, has been investigated for its use with P3HT:PCBM to build ternary active layer solar cell devices. The absorption spectrum and photoluminescence studies of M1 show promise for building improved solar cell devices due to the combined optical absorption range of M1 and P3HT molecules in the solar spectrum. The ternary active layer devices with M1, P3HT and PCBM show nearly 45% improvement in power conversion efficiencies compared to binary bulk hetero-junction P3HT:PCBM active layer devices.